Reckless Abandon
by avorialair
Summary: A trap, dormant since the beginning of time; a parallel Earth, struggling to survive; a child, whose secret could destroy the multiverse. The Doctor will have to face more than just his past when his faith in everything around him is put to the test.
1. Prologue

**Reckless Abandon**  
A Tenth Doctor and Rose story

**Title**_: Reckless Abandon_**  
Basic Summary**_: A trap, dormant since the beginning of time; a parallel Earth, struggling to survive; a child, whose secret could destroy the multiverse. The Doctor will have to face more than just his past when his faith in everything around him is put to the test._**  
Long Summary**_: While Martha and the Doctor are on the hunt for something that's sapping the strength out of time, can a parallel Earth in a parallel universe survive the consequences from a war that should never have happened? And just how far is the Doctor willing to go to avoid the past he's been trying to escape? The answers reside in that of a child; a child whose secret could bring about the destruction of the multiverse. A tale of love, hate, betrayal, secrets and prophecies that conspire to give one hell of an apocalypse. Can the day be saved after all?  
_**Author**_: Avoria  
_**Characters**_: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, The TARDIS, Captain Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, Jake Simmonds and others to follow._**  
Original Characters**: _Phoebe Moore, Brahnz Nörvich, Jacob Grace, Melaine Tyler and guest appearances from other minor characters.  
_**Disclaimer**_: The story is mine. The characters, names, accents, personalities, clothes, hair styles and God knows what else from the Beeb are not. I couldn't buy them with all the money in the world xD_**  
Rating**_: T – for theme, language, general concept and – knowing me – a bit of romance thrown in as well. If it changes, either way, there will be sufficient warnings._**  
Spoilers**_: Seasons 1 & 2 of Who (possibly 3 & 4, if you already know what's happened); at least Season 1 of Torchwood and probably bits of Season Two._**  
Setting**_: Post Doomsday, about eight months after Ten has picked Martha up. This is AU s3 of Who and, consequently, most of Torchwood._**  
Genre**_: Action/Adventure, Angst, AU, Drama, Fantasy, Humour, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Suspense._**  
Author's Note**_: This story has been written, slowly, since the summer of '06 and as yet is still a WIP. It's the biggest thing I've done. I'm posting it here first, without beta, just to start the ball rolling and hopefully convince me to finish it. Once it's finished, a full, edited version will appear on livejournal, which I will link to from here._**  
Dedication**_: For Rach, who always wanted a Martha she could like.

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Prologue – Things You Don't See

**Galaxia II, Year of the Hawthork. A sofa, an undefined time in the morning.**

It unnerved the Doctor when he had a dream he couldn't tame. He had slept before, he had dreamt before; it was natural for his mind to let out its backlog by showing him explosive colours and emotions in his head from time to time. It was usually why he preferred not to sleep. However, more and more these days, the need for sleep outweighed his disdain for doing so. Just occasionally, every now and then, he would feel more tired and more worn than normal. Perhaps he was getting old, he mused with a wry smile.

He lay on his back, on a sofa, staring up at the chipped paintwork on the ceiling. Arms folded behind his head, he was quite happy to lie here and mull things over. Tiredness occasionally prodded at the corner of his mind, asking the on-going question as to whether he was weak enough to give up yet. But, like always, he shook it away as he would a persistent animal, and would simply concentrate on the patterns above his head. Constellations moved for him, creating pictures and stories in front of his eyes that no dream could ever beat.

The Doctor frowned, his fringe tickling his forehead as he did so. He wrinkled his nose then sniffed, all the while trying to make sense of the thoughts that had been chasing one another around his head for the past few hours. He was used to dreaming colours. He was _not_ used to being surrounded by nothing but a voice.

…_Find me… Please… Don't you remember?… You have to find me… There isn't much time…_

The frown thickened.

"Who?" he asked aloud, and it surprised him how tired his voice sounded. "It's all very well asking me to find you – but I don't know who, what, _when_." He sighed belligerently and shifted his spine into a more comfortable position. "You realise I can't sleep because of you, don't you?"

He was answered by the little voice in the back of his mind that had so many times previously kept him calm in situations where most would be a raving mess. It told him that before he needed to sleep, he hadn't wanted to sleep; and since the recurring dreams of nothing, his curiosity to continue dreaming was exactly what was stopping him from doing so. He knew that something out there, somewhere, was calling to him and asking for help. It was simply proof of his luck that it had picked the last Time Lord to prey on, wasn't it? Just when he was beginning to enjoy the freedom of travelling again, something he couldn't explain was trying to attach itself to him and weigh him down.

"I won't let you," the Doctor argued into the empty room, with much the same tone in his voice as a petulant child. "I'll help if I can, but don't you for one second think that I'm going to designate all my time to trying to find you. My time is for Martha and no one else. Well, almost no one else. Wouldn't mind another crack at Shakespeare, I suppose."

A faint smile tickled the corner of the Doctor's mouth as memories flashed back into his mind; but they soon faded. He knew that he was simply speaking to himself, and that the – whatever it was – that was trying to communicate with him could not be contacted by words alone. It had resorted to the plane of dreams, no less, which in any book was always a last attempt at connection, and it meant that any contact back – if he had the wit to figure out how to reverse the signal in the first place – would probably involve some sort of weird ritual. With dancing. There was always some sort of dancing, he mused.

…_Doctor… There's no one else… You have to find me…_

The Doctor groaned and rolled over onto his side, the gloomy shadows of the sitting room suddenly more interesting than the ceiling above.

"No, there's never anyone else," he muttered, the cushion tickling his lips. "Is there? It's always 'the Doctor'. The one and only. Last man standing." With a further groan, he found himself covering his face with his hands as he exhaled loudly into his palms. "They're all mad. Or maybe I am."

The same voice, which was his own with a stranger's words, had been around his head so many times this night that the Doctor could not even recall if he had slept or not. Any resting he had done would have been brief as he drifted in and out of consciousness. What he wouldn't do for a –

Footsteps.

He could hear footsteps coming up the hallway. For some inexplicable reason, the Doctor felt that being caught awake right at this time was a very dangerous occupation. He quickly rolled over onto his back again, reached for the book that had dropped to the floor during the night (he left the sonic screwdriver where it had fallen – nothing wrong with a bit of inconspicuous mess, after all) and pretended he was asleep. He had no need to worry however, as when the door to the hotel room opened, he found that he could feel Martha's presence hovering in the frame. He had allowed her this time to go off and do some exploring for herself, given her a chance to be the 'pro' for a change. Too late he remembered that he'd agreed to stay back in the hotel room to examine the architecture of the building and not, in fact, to go to sleep. He must have become sidetracked. Yes, that was it. Whatever would she think of him?

"Poor thing. Must be exhausted."

Martha looked into the sitting room with tender eyes. Her search had done nothing to aid her earlier suspicions and she had come to find the Doctor to ask if he fancied staying put for another couple of hours. She knew he was restless (or so she'd thought), but she just couldn't put her finger on what was odd about this place. What she expected to sneak up on when she returned to the hotel room was a rather bashful looking alien who was poking about places that he wasn't allowed. It had happened before, after all, only she had suspected that he'd secretly wanted to be caught. However, what she saw had thrown her into a startled state and she was now leaning against the door frame in shock, her arms folded across her torso and her eyes scouring the scene.

His lean frame was stretched out on the sofa, coat all in a twist around him and one arm draped over the side. On the floor, just short of his fingers, lay the sonic screwdriver. An open book, its pages slightly creased, lay on his chest and his glasses had sunk a little down his nose. His mouth was open very slightly, letting soft breaths escape. He was fast asleep.

She had never seen him sleep before. She knew that he did – even with his 'superior Time Lord physiology', as he liked to remind her almost daily. But there was a difference between knowing that it happened and actually seeing it in front of her. The first thing she noticed was that his breathing was extremely languid and slow, as if it were more of a habit than a necessity. She put it down to his binary vascular system and smiled to herself. He was different from her in all these quaint little ways and yet, no matter how different they really were, it didn't seem to matter. They were still the best of friends.

The Doctor, as it turned out, was the sort of sleeper Martha felt she could watch for hours. There was just something about him that drew her interest and on more than one occasion she found her eyes carefully studying the contours of his face and body. He finally broke her out of her reverie when he gave a half-moan in his sleep and rolled over. The book dropped to the floor with a thud, the pages fluttering closed. She walked over to him, with the intention of waking him, but he was already sitting up and blinking by the time she was there. Martha bent down and reached for the book.

"Inter-Dimensional Time and Space Travel and its Effect on Sonic Devices," she read from the cover, frowning slightly.

The Doctor yawned and stretched. He was always good at playing pretend. "Bit of light reading," he elaborated, arching his arms backwards in a very feline-esque way.

"Light reading?" Martha snorted, turning the book over in her hands to read the information from the back. "Next you'll be telling me you read dictionaries for fun."

"I'll have you know that a lot can be learned from a good dictionary." The Doctor pointed a finger at her and admonished, "Just you remember that. Did you find anything out?"

Martha shook her head and sat beside the Doctor on the sofa. "Not a thing. I guess I was wrong about this place."

"No, I know what you mean," the Doctor agreed. He took back the book Martha handed him and concealed it inside his coat. "There was something about this place that just didn't agree – but I think it was the ambience. The animals here are just plain weird; have you seen them?"

Again, Martha shook her head.

"No," she replied with a sigh in her voice, "I only really talked to the porter, and he wasn't up for spilling information. At first I thought he was trying to hide something, but now I'm beginning to wonder if he's not just stupid."

The Doctor snorted, but said no more. His mind, quite by its own accord (for he would never have let it do so given the choice), drifted back to his dreams of earlier that night. Specifically, to an idea that had been flitting in and out of his mind for weeks now, ever since the voices had started: it was an idea he wasn't sure if he liked, or even wanted. It was an idea, a sort of dreaded hope, that took the form of a memory he had long tried to forget. It was a memory that hurt to think about, so – taking back control of his mind – he stopped.

A strange sound of mechanical birds began to wail through the window and Martha flinched. They had not been on this planet for very long, but she already didn't like it. Perhaps the sooner they got back onto the TARDIS, the better. At least then they might have a shot at being normal, though she wasn't even sure what normal _was_ any more – the word somewhat lost its meaning when travelling with the Doctor.

Normal certainly wasn't wandering into one's bathroom, dreary with sleep, to find a Time Lord poking about at your feminine toiletries like they were something that should belong in a museum. Although, credit where it was due, he had only done that to her once. That she knew of.

She wasn't quite sure how long they were quiet for, but eventually she stood and stared at the clock on the mantelpiece. It made no sense to her and, suddenly, she wanted something familiar.

"Tea?" she asked, turning to look at the Doctor. "Back in the TARDIS? I could quite go for a cuppa now; not sure there's much more here we can look for."

The Doctor grinned the most beautiful smile she had seen in a while. After picking up his sonic screwdriver they began to make their way to the door.

"Do you know, Martha," he said, placing a hand in the small of her back to lead her out of the room and back home, "I think that's the best idea you've had all day."


	2. A Friend in Need

**Chapter I – A Friend in Need**

**Cardiff, January 10th 2008. Phoebe Moore's bedroom, 4:26pm.**

Phoebe Moore was used to her arm tingling. Over the years she had grown accustomed to it and, more and more lately, pretended not to notice it. It happened at the strangest of times; usually when a lot of dangerous things she didn't understand were going on around her. When she was younger, she had never taken much notice of what the tingling had meant – just that it was something that happened which made her different from all the other children. After a while, her mother lost interest in the stories of how, when Phoebe's arm tingled, it meant something 'was going to happen'. So she learned to keep it to herself. And then, three years ago, it did more than tingle. She could remember the pain quite clearly, even now, because it was a kind of pain she had never felt before. It didn't exactly _hurt_, but it made her rub at her arm to try and ease it anyway. She imagined that lots of tiny bugs were all crawling on her skin and biting her, all over the place, and that nothing would make them go away. It was soon after that that the dreams had started.

She wasn't allowed to talk about her dreams any more. She remembered that her daddy, full of shouting and alcohol, couldn't put up with the nuisance she was becoming and had left her. She remembered that her mummy had cried. That had been a couple of years ago, though, and they were much better now. Phoebe never spoke about her dreams and her mother never had to worry. She had since learned not to let them bother her, because dreaming of the stars and planets couldn't be that bad. It only made her sad when there was screaming, or fighting, or when the strange faceless man appeared and told her he was coming for her. That was what scared her the most, because although she never saw him, she spent most of her time awake wondering who he was. She had learned not to talk about him, either.

That said, Phoebe didn't talk much to anyone. Whenever she had tried in the past, either nobody had had the time, or they had all thought there was something wrong with her. She remembered the looks on the faces of the grown-ups when she mentioned that she dreamed about death; she remembered the months of extensive questioning from doctors who came to her house in white coats, who had clipboards and mobile telephones and who all looked the same; she remembered sitting by the banister of the stairs listening to her mother cry for hours on end. And she learned to lie. Now, everyone thought she was normal again. Or as normal as a girl who is tutored from home can be. She wasn't allowed to go to school because she was too much of a worry for the teachers – or so the doctors said.

She hadn't seen a doctor in years, though. She'd only seen her mother and the teacher-lady who came to her house three times a week and check up on her work. No one else was bothered by her any more – but Phoebe didn't mind. She liked it, sometimes: just being able to be on her own. But other times the quietness around her seemed so loud that she wanted to scream and cover her ears with her hands. She had only made the mistake of doing that once – the look on her mother's face was more than enough to keep her from daring to do it again.

Now she spent all the time she had thinking, or drawing, or writing in her diary. Her diary was the only place she was allowed to be herself, so it was no surprise that it was her most valued friend in the world. Everything she felt and thought was poured into that diary – even the things about her dreams. Somehow, when she wrote about things – even things she didn't understand – they all made sense in the diary. It was like having a friend that never spoke.

Coincidentally enough, she was writing in her diary when it happened. At first it was the normal tingling and Phoebe didn't even notice it. But then it grew stronger and stronger, until it grew so bad that she threw down her pen in pain and yelped. She didn't understand what was going on, but nevertheless, she rolled up the arm of her jumper and stared at her arm, just like all the other times. Though she couldn't see anything wrong, the pain was so intense and precise that she could smooth a finger over the strange shape it made. She frowned. Then, without really knowing why, she reached for her pen again and, concentrating on her arm, she drew on a piece of paper what she thought her pain looked like. It was strange, trying to outline the shape of the burn on her arm when she couldn't see it; but for some reason, it felt like it was necessary.

The pain subsided not long after and Phoebe sighed disdainfully. Rolling down the arm of her jumper again, she climbed to her feet and arched her arms backwards into a stretch. The fairy-covered clock on her bedside table told her that it was just past two in the afternoon. She decided, upon reflection, that this was a very silly time for it read and thus proceeded across her bedroom to change it. It was chance that she happened to glance outside her window.

At first Phoebe thought it was raining; but then she realised this was also silly, as she couldn't hear it. Forgetting about the time on the clock for now, she made her way towards the window and gave the glass a very hard stare. She was quite sure that a girl's face had never been there before. She had a thick head of dark brown hair, and bright, blue eyes. Then, suddenly, she dissolved into a different figure, a man with dark slits for his eyes, like a snake. His cheeks were almost white, but maybe that was the glare of the sunlight on the window. She wondered if he'd come to keep her company.

"Hello," she said, blinking at him. "You seem to be stuck in my window. Are you all right?"

He spoke back in a language she didn't understand. The sound reminded her of a snake and she frowned, not liking the uncomfortable feeling that blanketed her senses.

"I don't understand you," she apologised, shaking her head. "I only speak English, not snake language. Do you need help?"

This time the face didn't speak, but nodded slowly. Phoebe gave him a charming smile.

"I can help you, if you like. What do you want?"

As if in answer, her arm tingled again. She scratched at it absently with her right hand, her eyes still focused on the translucent image in her window. The man stared back emptily and Phoebe's smiled faded. "Did you do that?" she wondered with annoyance. He nodded again.

"I don't like you any more," she decided, dropping her hand. "I don't think you're very nice and I'm going to close my curtains now. Goodbye."

She missed the smile that passed over the shadow's face. As she reached for the curtain, however, her arm began to burn like it never had before. She heard a scream she didn't recognise, and only seconds later realised it was her own. The pain ignited down her arm and through her body like liquid fire and she screwed her eyes shut to try and fight it off. She heard laughing, cold and serpentine, build up around her. She felt an intense pain split her head as pictures exploded in full colour across her mind; she didn't understand the pictures, or why everything was white, or why the man who said he'd always come for her was suddenly telling her that everything was going to be all right, she just had to hold on. She tried to tell him that there was a strange man in her window. But then everything went black and she stopped being able to think.

-oOo-

**The TARDIS, many, many months earlier.**

The Doctor couldn't put his finger on it, but something was definitely wrong. The air in the TARDIS was different than he was used to, and he didn't like it. It was as though his beloved ship was suffering from a particularly nasty stage in a hormonal cycle, and there was something very unflattering about one's ship when she refused to cooperate with him. She had been like this ever since he and Martha had returned from Galaxia II, as though the mood from the planet had followed them back onto the ship like a lingering smell.

The Doctor, feeling slightly uncomfortable again, sighed.

"Come on old girl, tell me what's wrong," he pleaded helplessly. He was perched on a rickety stool in the console room, his feet resting on the metal bar that circulated it. He stared at a monitor that folded out from the side of the main control unit and watched eternal symbols fly back and forth across it. It was the same as always, no anomalies, nothing there that was out of place – so why was he feeling like this? "I can't help you if you won't _let_ me help you."

As if in answer, the lights flickered. The Doctor groaned and closed his eyes. His ship was full of impurities, always had been. But lately it was different ..._she_ was different. Little things kept going wrong. They would land in a slightly bizarre time, which was only a fraction of time out from when he meant to land; planets that showed up on his solar-system scan turned out not to be there at all; the lights kept going off; the fourth corridor on the seventh landing kept moving and changing shape; doors led to different rooms depending on the time of day and who was walking through them; the toaster in the kitchen sprouted legs and began to scuttle around the surface – although, to be fair, that one had simply been a stowaway from a previous planet and the Doctor had dealt with it thoroughly. But the fact it had even managed to creep on in the first place was cause for concern. The list of oddities and mistakes went on and on – it was like his own TARDIS was punishing him.

He couldn't remember the last time she had been quite like this. The more worrying thing was that there was no explanation for it – there was no universal shift that could be affecting the seams of time. A dull memory chinked in the back corner of his mind like ice in a glass: something to do with the Time War. The Doctor concentrated for a moment. Was it possible that something as large-scale as that was happening again? Or was his ship just having a hissy fit? No answer presented itself to him, and the Doctor was slightly disappointed.

They hadn't gone anywhere else since returning to the TARDIS. It was as though his spark for adventure had suddenly burnt out. Galaxia II was hardly a hit; they'd landed because he always knew the planet held mystery and excitement and had hoped it would jog both he and Martha back into the spirit of things. But they had found nothing. No conspiracies, no secrets, no unexplainable deaths. It was quite dull. And what worried the Doctor more was the fact that whenever he thought about planets and their histories, he often found his mind becoming clouded as though he were trying to think through thick fog. It was almost as though he could feel himself becoming less intelligent. Certainly less impressive, as far as Martha was concerned. He knew she'd never show it, but she was probably becoming quite bored with their routine of late. They all were.

"Martha!" he suddenly called back through the corridor of the TARDIS, catching himself by surprise. Had he meant to shout? "Martha, we're heading back to London! I need to drop you off for a couple of hours!"

He could hear sounds of discontentment working their way up the corridor, and within a few moments, she stood at the door. He gave her an apologetic look.

"What do you mean 'drop me off'?" she asked, slightly hurt. He'd never dumped her anywhere before – he'd had no reason to. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. But the TARDIS and I need to have a little 'chat', and you can't be here when that happens. I'm sorry Martha. I'd keep you here if I could, but the energy released from what I need to do would ionise the cells in your body and, well ...to put it bluntly, you'd be pretty fried to a crisp. I'd be serving you back to your parents on a plate."

Her face was crestfallen and she walked slowly towards him, seemingly with the intention of changing his mind. The Doctor glanced to the controls, already going through mentally which he would need to use to get them safely back to London. Martha hesitated, noting his expression.

"You won't be very long, will you?" she asked after a moment or two.

The Doctor relaxed. He then smiled, glad that she didn't push the matter. She never argued with him when it was serious; it was one of the things he appreciated about her. "The speed of light," he confirmed. "You won't even notice I'll have gone. But I could give you a couple of hours with your family anyway, if you like, I'm sure they'd love to see you."

Martha was quiet for a moment as she pondered it. "All right then. It's about time Tish and I caught up. When are we leaving?"

The Doctor hopped off his stool, folded the monitor back into the unit, and pulled a lever.

"Now," he grinned enticingly.

Martha smiled weakly and watched as the Doctor operated the TARDIS. The central column began to pulsate and glow as they moved through time like so many other times before. She couldn't help feeling a little numb at the situation, however. The TARDIS package seemed to have lost its magic of late. The Doctor's gleam in his eye that meant 'adventure' had been gone for a while now, and try as she might to keep up the pretence that everything was still new and exciting and fulfilling, she couldn't help but admit to herself that something was missing. It was part of the reason she so willingly allowed the Doctor to have his 'chat' with the ship.

About a minute or so later, Martha Jones opened the door and stepped out onto the streets of London. A fierce wind blew around her and she squinted through the cold. The Doctor leaned against the doorway and watched her take a few paces. She turned and looked at him, feeling his eyes on her.

"When am I?"

The Doctor puffed out his cheeks with thought. "Oh ...only a few days after our last visit. Not long." At Martha's quizzical look, he explained, "I like to make sure the visits are close together. No long gaps in between – can you imagine what would happen if you didn't turn up here for an entire week? Heck, go one better, try an entire year!"

He was grinning, but somehow Martha could tell there was nothing behind it.

"You won't come in for a bit before you start work?" she offered kindly.

The Doctor peered up to the sky, his smile fading. "Better not. The sooner I start the better, to be honest." He looked at Martha and smiled. "Have a nice time."

With that, he disappeared inside and the door clicked shut. Martha nodded. "Thanks," she answered to empty air.

She then turned around and stared up at the building before her. Perhaps it was the way the light fell on it, but it looked suddenly ominous. The grey chiselled walls offered no comfort, and neither did the rows and rows of windows that stared out like blank eyes. It had been a while since she had felt this alone. Putting one foot in front of the other, she started to walk.

She didn't even turn as she heard the engines of the TARDIS groan into action. She simply nuzzled her chin into the collar of her coat for warmth and kept walking.

-oOo-

"Well, it's just you and me now."

They were hovering in the midst of the vortex, nothing and nowhere around them. The Doctor fell silent, suddenly realising just how small his ship was. Without Martha's presence, the TARDIS felt vaguely hollow. She was only a very small human in a very large time ship, granted, but he wasn't used to being on his own with his ship. It was slightly unsettling.

The Doctor stood at the console and drummed his fingers on the side of his leg, wondering what to do next. It was all very well explaining to Martha what he had to do, but actually going about doing it was a different matter. In the grand scheme of things, Time Lords did generally not confer with their ships. If there was a problem or they were behaving strangely, they were taken to the docks for adjustments and repairs. Only, there were no docks now, he mused resentfully.

An embittered memory from his early childhood prickled at the corners of his mind and before he knew it, the pictures were projected to him as if onto a cinema screen.

It was rare to find a child so young down at the repair yard, but it wasn't as if the workers had known he was there. Unbeknownst to them this young boy, whose appearance now had been altered so much with time it was impossible to find any trace of similarity, had watched them work and repair several TARDISes over many years. He had become fascinated with them – fixated by them – and had learned all he knew about handling the machines simply by watching. But watching wasn't enough – he wanted more. It was no surprise, then, when his rebelliousness had got the better of him and he had stolen one whilst it was in the process of being repaired. What was the point in simply _surveying_ when experiencing was so much more powerful?

The others hadn't understood, and he had been punished for his crime – eventually. But it had made no difference in the end. He was still here, still with her, and they were still a team. The only thing that had suffered was his manoeuvring skills.

He and his TARDIS had always seemed mutual in their symbiotic relationship. Lately, however, things had changed. She was losing energy and, with her, so was he. At first he'd thought it was simply the dreams wearing him down, but it was too much of a coincidence for it to be happening to his TARDIS as well. There was a connection somewhere that he was missing and knowing it was infuriating. There was negative energy whizzing around all over the place and it was affecting his concentration and sheer enjoyment of life. He used to think he was just getting old. He'd certainly begun to feel it during his last regeneration and in some ways more so in this one. He could only keep up the lithe, lively attitude for so long before the inevitable consumed him. There was no way to escape it. His Tenth Regeneration ...already.

Soon he would die and, with him, his species, his history and his heritage. Then there would be nothing standing in the way of the monsters and the worlds; they would slowly crawl back from the shadows to wreak havoc and repay the blood the Doctor had saved. It was why he lived the life he did. Not to save worlds and claim to be a hero – that was for a better man than he; he was training the universe to fend for itself. Picking up stragglers, teaching them how to fight then replacing them back into the fabric of time to be rewoven into the tapestry and, one day, fight for what they had been born for. He was training an army, one by one. And it was exhausting.

Earth had many defenders now. But there were so many other planets that needed his help that simply thinking about them made the Doctor feel even more wearied. He couldn't train them all; he didn't have enough strength. His sentimental attachment with Earth had weakened him, he would freely admit, especially after the Time War. It was his second home, planet wise, for there was nowhere else to turn to. Of course, he'd always have the TARDIS.

It did have to make him wonder what was going on in the universe, to have even his most magnificent time ship on the blink.

The Doctor broke himself out of his thoughts with a start. How long he had been standing there, just staring at the central column, he didn't know; but judging by the odd twitch running up the back of his calf, he would call it a while. For the first time in quite a few months, the Doctor actually studied the framework of his ship. Smudges of time had dirtied the metal and as he walked around, running his hand along the railing that travelled the wall, he could almost feel iotas of metal flake off. His once-magnificent gleaming ship now looked shabby and worn. The Doctor sighed and slowed to a stop.

"You look as tired as I feel," he said, staring worriedly up the walls. Something halfway to the ceiling caught his eye and he squinted through the bronze light up at the imperfection. The corner of the metal covering was beginning to tear away, as though it were no more than a sheet of paper. The Doctor's worry increased. "Goodness," he sympathised, placing a gentle hand against the wall, "you are in a bad way, aren't you?"

He laughed a little then, feeling hundreds of tiny vibrations coming from the wall through the receptors in the palm of his hand. His ship was still very much alive, at least; simply tired. Perhaps it was time for a one-on-one conversation with her.

With that in mind, the Doctor turned and made his way back to the console. He crouched down under the main framework and reached blindly through a small alcove into the depths of his ship. His hand tightened around the device he was looking for and, bringing it out into the light, he examined it carefully. It was a little black box, just wider than his palm and a definite snug fit with the rest of his hand. There was a screen, glowing blue, towards the top, and underneath several buttons and keys with foreign lettering on them. He couldn't help taking a moment to smile at the little control system.

"Right then," he announced cheerfully as he pushed several buttons with his other hand. "Time to sort you out... You know what this entails. I'm sorry."

What he was doing was rarely done in TARDISes, and for good reason. Any Time Lord would tell you that shutting down the trans-dimensional operation from the _inside_ of the ship was a stupid idea and likely to get you killed. But the Doctor believed in his TARDIS and knew that he would be safe. It did mean, however, that he would lose the innards of his ship for an hour or two ...even the life support systems would go down. His only hope was to seal off this room with whatever air it had in it and hope that the systems would come back online before he suffocated to death. It wasn't that likely, he reflected with some sense of doubt.

The door closed across the room and the Doctor began work. He had to keep up a constant rhythm of information into the control system, otherwise it would fail and he would have to start over again. His fingers worked steadily, inputting one piece of data, then another, then another and always managing to keep up the same rhythm on the keys. The rooms from beyond the door began to change and, eventually, disappear into bleak nothingness. The Doctor could feel it, as though someone were removing his organs without them actually going anywhere. With only a moment's shock he hoped that that wasn't actually what was happening.

Before long, the ship was brought back to only three dimensions. The control room had shrunk somewhat and looked a lot squarer than the Doctor would have liked. But he understood that the ship was rearranging its inside to fit its exterior, for there were no extra dimensions keeping them apart now. In fact, as he took a quick look around, he failed to see how his ship had been any other way. Happy that his work was finished – for now – the Doctor replaced the small control unit.

He stood up and flexed his hand, relieving it from its twinging cramp. He then looked fondly at the central column of his ship and noted how different it looked when the walls were so closed in. She looked awfully cramped, he must admit; he would get this over with as quickly as he could. He could only imagine how annoyed his ship was, for he had made her weak to the outside world. The Doctor, pondering these issues, reached inside his coat for the sonic screwdriver. Not long after, the lights went out as the power failed. The Doctor was thrown into complete blackness; not an echo of light came from anywhere.

The Doctor pouted. "Oh, this just isn't fair."

He knew exactly what his ship was playing at – she didn't want to be opened up. Hats off to her neither would he given the circumstances, but that didn't stop him from switching on the sonic screwdriver to give him some light. It flickered on and, after a few seconds, promptly flickered off again. The Doctor let out an agitated groan; of course. The TARDIS' power systems were offline, so his sonic screwdriver had nowhere to charge its energy from. It probably had about ten seconds' worth of power in it, if that. It was time to resort to desperate measures. He just hoped that what he needed hadn't been 'moved' in the temporal shift.

The Doctor picked his way across the TARDIS like a blind man on a rickety bridge and found, after much scrabbling and random searching, what he was looking for. A metal toolbox crammed into a small alcove on the side of his ship. Feeling for the catch he opened it, then rummaged through the various components until he felt the familiar shape and wrenched it out from the bottom of the pile. Sounds crashed around him as other nameless artefacts fell to the floor, but he straightened with a happy smile nonetheless and turned the end of his article anti-clockwise. Instantly a beam of light shot out of it, illuminating as much of the room as the beams would allow. The Doctor nodded approvingly.

"You may be stone-age technology," he told the torch in his hand, "but you aren't half useful. So come on, let's get this ship of mine open and see what she has to say."

It was comparatively easy to make his way back to the main control panel of his ship. He balanced the torch on the top buttons then, with authority, he placed his hands on the circular railing around the console. He straightened his arms and bent his head, his eyes falling closed as he sank into a state of concentration. His ship had been opened up far too many times in the past millennia, but some things were necessary.

The Doctor whispered words which had not been spoken since the death of his race. Then, with all the strength he felt necessary (it would depend on how his ship was cooperating with him) he yanked up the bar. In that same instant, a terrible blinding white light flooded the room – it made the torch light completely inadequate. The eerie glow spread its tendrils to every corner of the room and pulsated with simple, raw energy. Most would have to squint when they looked into the heart of the TARDIS, but not the Doctor. He stared defiantly back, his face curiously blank as it was bathed in white light. His features all seemed to meld into one another and, had Martha been able to look at him now, she would have found him more alien than she could have ever imagined.

"So," the Doctor began. His voice had lost its jovial edge, for there was no need to pretend now. He realised that through the power of telepathy he didn't actually need to speak, but he found it easier and, in honesty, a little less creepy.

**You have been around humans too long**, echoed the voice in answer to this fleeting thought. It was impossible to describe whether it was in him, outside of him or around him. It was more a part of his mind and thoughts than anything else. The 'voice' of the TARDIS was most definitely feminine, but with a grating edge that unsettled him, like the mixture of oil and water. He knew she wasn't really a part of him, yet at the same time, they were one. In ways.

The Doctor straightened. "So have you."

**Ah, my Doctor, how you do amuse**, she chuckled.

"Yes, well, I'm not here for pleasantries. You know what it means, my having to resort to this. What's going on?"

**You do not know?**

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking, would I?"

**That is not strictly true now, is it Doctor? I am inside your mind with every passing measurement of time. I know things about you that you have hidden away from everyone else – even yourself. I know more about you than there ever is to know. I know what it is that hides in your dreams.**

The Doctor's face twisted into cynicism and confusion. "This isn't about me – "

**You are connected in more ways than you can possibly imagine. Worlds rely on you, Doctor.**

"You think I don't know that?" the Doctor countered, his voice rising with flares of anger. "I didn't ask for this."

**We all create ourselves**, the TARDIS told him wisely. **Every action has its consequence elsewhere in the universe. You cannot hide from what you have become.**

This was not the conversation the Doctor was expecting to have. He sighed and watched as a wisp of light floated into the air then dissolved into nothing. It was just like his TARDIS to speak in riddles.

"These matters are for a later time. Not now," he said at last, staring back into the pure white of his ship. "You've been disconcerted lately and it's been affecting both of us."

**Did you ever stop to wonder, Doctor, and think perhaps it is not I with the troubles, but you?**

"There's nothing bothering me. Aside from a ship who appears to be suffering from PMT."

**You are blocking again, Doctor.**

"'Blocking'," the Doctor mimicked, fitting his mouth around the word as though it were a toffee. "What's that supposed to mean, anyway? 'Blocking'. I'm not 'blocking' anything; I'm trying to get to the source of the problem. And you – aren't – helping." He punctuated the last words with prods to the mainframe of his ship.

**There is nothing wrong with me.**

"But there must be! Things haven't exactly been running ship-shape lately, if you'll excuse the pun, and you know it."

**I am as strong or weak as I have always been and nothing has changed that. It is simply your perception which has been altered.**

"Don't you start harping on at me about perception. If there's nothing wrong then tell me you'll stop having little systematic glitches. You've ...you've had me worried." His tone changed with these last words and the TARDIS was silent for a moment.

**I appreciate the sentiment**, she replied and the Doctor felt warmth running through him. **I have no need to continue with my alerts. I simply wished to communicate with you.**

At this, the Doctor frowned. "But you can communicate with me anyway – it doesn't have to resort to ...well, this." He indicated their surroundings with his hand. "I've always been able to tell what's wrong in the past. What's changed now?"

**You.**

"Me?" he questioned disbelievingly. "I haven't changed that much. Just a regeneration, and that was a while ago."

**Your last form was more in touch with me than any of your others have been. Do you not remember?**

The Doctor was silent for a while as he was transported back to memory. "Yes," he answered eventually, grateful that the TARDIS had shown patience. "But that was a long time ago. I was a changed man then. The Time War ...you were all I had."

**And is that not the way it should be? Should always be?**

"I ...don't know."

**You have let your feelings cloud your judgement, Time Lord; now you are suffering the consequences. You have always been adamant about your feelings in the past and it has not gone disrespected. However, some lines are not meant to be crossed.**

"I can't change. You know that. I am who I am and – "

**You are who you ****think**** you are**, the TARDIS corrected. **But you have become clouded in your judgement. Who you are is a choice and you fail to see that this choice can be unmade.**

"What are you getting at?" the Doctor asked, slightly irritated that his ship kept interrupting him.

**Your choice has brought you nothing but misery.**

"That isn't true! The things I've done, the people I've saved – if I'm miserable it's not because of the life I lead."

**But you ****are**** miserable.**

It wasn't a question. The Doctor sighed and looked down the floor again. "I'm a lot of things," he explained, feeling slightly more alone again. "There are many, many words I could use. But it doesn't matter; how I feel doesn't _matter_. My responsibility is to this universe is ...as a father's to his child. You can't expect me to turn my back on it now."

**That is your choice, Doctor. Mine is to warn you. It is all I have ever wished to give you.**

"Then why didn't you just say so in the first place?"

**You didn't ask.**

"Very funny."

**It was not a joke – **

"I know!" the Doctor cut across. He took a breath and calmed himself, as well as unclenching his fists. He knew it was always emotional when Time Lords conversed with their TARDISes, which was why many of them chose not to do it. "I know," he repeated more calmly. "Just ...tell me."

**Doctor, my message is this: she needs your help.**

The Doctor blinked. "What? What is _that_ supposed to mean?" he questioned ardently, throwing a hand into the air. "Who? Who needs my help?"

**That will become clear when the time is right. But something is coming and it will find her. It will find you, too, and it will find me. You have to be prepared.**

"Don't ...don't say that. You know I don't like it when you talk like that." The Doctor found himself hesitating. "How am I supposed to help if I don't know what I'm up against?"

**The same way you help every planet you visit**, the TARDIS mused wryly. **The same way you helped our people then they needed you most. The same way I helped you at the end of the Time War; when you needed ****me****.**

"You didn't have to," he muttered darkly, a flash of a sadness in his voice. "I didn't ask you to."

**You did not have to ask – it was not your time, Doctor, as it neither is yet. But come, we are discussing matters which are beyond our control. I have given you my warning; systems shall now return to normal.**

"Thank you."

**One last thing, Doctor. Beware of the darkness.**

The white energy that was the TARDIS began to fold back into the central column, and the Doctor frowned.

Uneasiness came over him as he set about reversing the work he had done. The tendrils of blinding white light disappeared the instant the unit was closed again, their energy being sucked back into the vortex. He was thankful when the lights came back on. As he set about re-applying the temporal and dimensional balances, he found that his mind kept wandering back to the TARDIS' warning.

_She needs your help... Something is coming and it will find her... It will find you, too... Beware of the darkness..._

He still didn't understand entirely what that meant; she was as cryptic as he was, his time ship. He attempted to push it to the back of his mind for now, as whatever answer he had to his questions would be presented to him when the time was right.

The Doctor replaced the small control unit and stood up with a stretch. He was pleased to see the console room back to its original form. With a grin for good measure he bounded over to the door and flung it open. His eyes lit up like beacons when he saw the corridors and rooms were back in place exactly as they had been before. There would probably only be very few minor changes. Then he suddenly froze with a look of surreal terror on his face. Turning back, the Doctor faced the central column and gave it a hard stare.

"You'd better not have tidied my room," he told it very matter-of-factly.

He then rushed back to his controls and headed for London, exactly two hours after he had dropped Martha off. If she asked what he had been up to, he decided that he would lie. There are some things better left unsaid; and admitting that one had had a conversation with one's supposedly inanimate time ship was one of them.


	3. Cause and Effect

**Chapter II – Cause and Effect**

It was not long after the Doctor had picked her up that Martha stumbled upon a room she had never been in before. She had been informed, fairly briefly, that the some rooms of the TARDIS may have shifted – something to do with dimensional integration that she assumed made sense only to a Time Lord – but this was something else. Most places she ventured into gave off an atmosphere of being welcoming, mainly slightly 'homey'. Even the garden had seemed warmed and refreshing. Martha knew the TARDIS held many rooms and she liked to think she knew them all: until now. Because this was definitely somewhere she had not seen before.

It was a room. Not an empty storage room or anything as complex at that – more accurately, it was a bedroom. What made it even more extraordinary, however, was that it looked like it had recently been lived in. The lights – which were not set into the ceiling, but followed the path of the railing along the perimeter of the room – were dimmed low, giving the place a gentle ambience. Plush red carpet lined the floor and candle-stick-holders with no candles in them lay dotted around the walls. The bed, though made, was left in a somewhat untidy state, with a jacket strewn over the end bedpost. The dresser on the other side of the room was scattered with various items of makeup and hair accessories as well as various photo frames. Even the wardrobe to her right was ajar, as if the previous occupier of the room had left in a hurry.

As Martha stepped further into the room she felt suddenly uneasy. She quietly pushed the door to behind her, feeling much like she had sneaked into somewhere forbidden – which was silly, as she had only discovered this place in accident whilst looking for her actual bedroom. Without really knowing why, she crossed the room over to the dressing table.

Her eyes scanned over the photographs. There was what looked to be a New Year's party, with a banner saying 'Happy New year for 2005'. A large gathering of people was clustered around the photograph, some old, some young – it definitely looked like some sort of family occasion. In the middle of the photograph were two blondes, by the looks of things a mother and a daughter. The older of the two had her arms wrapped around her daughter and was kissing her ardently on the cheek. The daughter, obviously laughing, was trying to fend her off. Friendly, smiling faces surrounded them, a mixture of ages.

Martha smiled, looking to the next photograph. This showed the same girl again, but with a group of friends this time. The balloon the girl had clasped in her head read 'Happy Birthday' and she was surrounded by what looked like friends. A dark-skinned girl, a dark-skinned boy, a paler girl and then the evidence of a large crowd in the background.

The next picture surprised her. It was in a smaller frame than the others and she smirked at it. The Doctor stood in a pink Christmas hat, wearing a jovial expression as he held up a satsuma. He looked quite at home, she reflected, though he obviously wasn't on the TARDIS.

She then frowned as she noticed something. Poking out from behind the photo-frame, as though hidden, was the corner of another photograph. Enraptured by the mystery, she reached for it. It had no frame and lay as a simple picture, obviously the presence of the photograph frames hiding it. Martha turned it in the light so she could see it better.

Two people she didn't recognise sat smiling on a sofa. At a closer glimpse, Martha could see that the blonde was the same as in the other pictures, except that she looked like she had grown older both in wisdom and years. She was pretty, and was laughing naturally at the man she was sitting with. And though he was not classically handsome, he possessed a brooding, thoughtful look as he watched the girl that gave him depth and character. The picture had obviously been taken without either of them aware it was happening.

The flat they were in looked a little untidy, and cramped, like some sort of family event; perhaps not a birthday or New Year's party this time, or even Christmas, but something was definitely going on. Her eyes gazed at the man, clad in a dark leather jacket and sitting as though the girl beside him were taking up all of his attention. Martha felt strangely drawn to him and had a very strong urge to find out who he was – who both of these people were.

She turned the photograph over in her hands, looking for maybe a note on the back saying who they were.

"Hello, Martha."

The voice was quiet but had a definite edge of authority. She began to turn with a smile.

"Hello. What are you – what's wrong?" she asked, noticing his slightly darkened expression.

He took a step forwards into the room.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked, seemingly not having heard her.

"Nothing, I ...I was looking for my room." For a reason she couldn't explain, she suddenly felt incredibly guilty, as though she'd been caught reading her sister's diary. She avoided the Doctor's eye. "Sorry."

"This is Rose's room," the Doctor told her, slowly sliding his hands into his pockets. "I thought it was still locked."

"Oh." Martha looked genuinely sorry. She looked down to her feet. "I wouldn't have come if I'd known. But I hadn't seen the room before ...wondered whose it was, though I did guess. I was just curious."

She could tell the Doctor wasn't really listening. His eyes were raking carefully around the room, over the quickly made bed, to the clothes piled up on a chair in the corner, to the shoes strewn haphazardly by the wardrobe and to the picture frames covering the dresser. It all looked as though she had just left yesterday, as though he had preserved her presence in here like a museum.

"Was this her?" Martha asked quietly, turning the photograph back over in her hands. The Doctor frowned and ventured over.

"Where did you find this?" he questioned with wonder, taking the picture from her hands and becoming very interested in it. He brushed Rose's cheek tenderly with a finger.

"It was ...on the dresser. Just sitting there." It wasn't exactly a lie, but for some reason, Martha felt she didn't want to betray the girl's secret of having kept it hidden behind other photographs.

"Yes," the Doctor smiled, his voice full of bitterness. "This is her."

"She's very pretty."

He sighed, his eyes flicking over the photograph. "Much more so in person."

"And the bloke she's with," Martha indicated, watching him slowly. "That her dad?"

The Doctor snorted. "Hardly." He gazed at the photograph longingly. He remembered that, in her house, just after he'd brought her back a year later than he meant to. He had no idea that anyone had photographed them, and no clue that Rose had even kept it. "So much more than that," he sighed, looking up.

Martha eyed him knowingly, unable to help her smile. "Boyfriend?"

"He was... " he tried to amend; but he couldn't think of the right words to say. He placed the photograph back on the dresser, eyes scanning the other multitude of pictures. "He was better than that," he settled eventually. "_They_ were better than that."

Martha squinted at the picture. "He looks a bit old for her."

"You have no idea," the Doctor chuckled.

"So what happened to him, then?" she asked, turning back. The Doctor lifted an eyebrow. "When Rose came with you, I mean. What happened to the bloke?"

"Oh, he ...disappeared." The Doctor swallowed and turned around. His eyes fell on the jacket over the bed. He let out a sigh.

"Just like that?" Martha asked carefully. "If I'd have been him, I'd have been a bit miffed if my girlfriend went off around the universe without me; especially with an alien – a male alien."

"It was never really an issue," he told her honestly. "Must admit, I think her boyfriend _was_ a bit miffed. Envious, probably, and resentful of the fact she seemed to enjoy the experience so much."

Martha grinned mischievously and snaked over to him. "And you, you didn't enjoy that at all. Not at all."

He met her eye and a grin cracked his face. "Not in the slightest."

Then her smile faded and she was looking down again, feeling sympathy for the Doctor – even his smile couldn't hide the pain that obviously still dwelt there.

"You miss her, don't you?" she asked tenderly. "Even now, after all the stuff we've done, you still think of her."

"I... "

There were no words he could say. Memories slammed into his mind, catching him off guard, and he felt suddenly winded by tears. He hadn't been in this room since he had sealed it off, just after his encounter with Donna. She had taught him it was important to keep living even when it had felt like he'd lost everything. It was difficult to let go of the memories of Rose, especially since they clung to him just as she did to that lever in Torchwood Tower. One day he would find the strength to let go. But not today.

"Yes," he answered eventually, his voice cracked. "I miss her. Very much, sometimes."

"What happened?"

He met her eye earnestly. "That is a story for a different day, Miss Jones. For now, I think, we'll settle with another adventure. I've just thought of the perfect place to take you."

"You have?" She smiled warmly at him. "Where is it?"

"It's a surprise!"

She gave him a sceptical look. "Things had better not try take me off for some weird experiments this time."

"Ooh, can't promise anything." The Doctor grinned, placing his hand in the small of Martha's back as he led her gently out of the room. He cast a look back inside once they were at the door – it seemed a lot less inviting now than it had when the original occupant had been living here. He looked at Martha for a long moment. She frowned a little.

"What?"

"Just ...thank you."

"What for?" she snorted, crossing her arms.

"For being here. With me. It means a lot to have you with me."

Martha nodded appreciatively. "Well, you're welcome Doctor. What can I say, sometimes we all need a friend."

"Wise words. Have you been sneaking into the library again?"

She hit him on the arm and he recoiled in feigned pain, rubbing his upper arm.

"I'm going to go for a shower," she told him, laughing. "Then I'll come find you and we can go to this 'mystery planet'."

"Sounds good to me," the Doctor replied, slowly closing the door of Rose's room. "But chop chop, or I'll leave without you."

"You wouldn't dare." Martha squinted at him.

"Time Lords wait for no man."

She snorted. "For one thing, I'm a woman. And for another, you know perfectly well that if you left without me I just wouldn't be able to _resist_ having a fiddle with the controls, not to mention having a good old poke around – "

"Go. Shower. Now," the Doctor ordered good-naturedly, pointing down the corridor. "That way. Should be the ...third on your left, and if my directions are a bit rusty it's only because my ship has had the equivalent of a trans-temporal hiccup and moved everything.

"Yeah, yeah. See you in a bit, Doctor."

She made her way down the corridor, shaking her head laughingly. The Doctor smiled gently, watching her go. Then, once she was out of sight, he let out a sigh. Reaching into the pocket of his coat he dug out the sonic screwdriver and slowly fiddled with its settings.

"That, old girl, was sneaky," he said aloud whilst grasping the door handle and holding the screwdriver up to it. He turned the power on and it buzzed contentedly. When he had locked this room the first time, it had been in a fit of passionate deliberation. Now that he was thinking about it, it hurt to close off a part of his life that was once so important to him. One day, in the far future, he would unlock the door for a final time and clear it out. But for the moment it preserved the memory of someone who was still very dear to his hearts, and would stay that way probably for years to come.

As he made his way towards the console room, hands in pockets, there was a dull ache in his chest. He was just happy that he had Martha's company to delight in. She did, after all, make the pain that little bit easier to bear and without her he may very well be in his eleventh form, if not dead. It was a comforting thought. And with that in mind, he grinned with anticipation of her face when he took her to where he planned next.

-oOo-

The great, groaning, wrenching sound of the TARDIS' engines filled the forest. Out of nowhere the strange blue box suddenly 'became', weaving itself into history as if it had always been there and always would sit there. Out of it, when the door opened, hopped a tall man in a long trench coat that fanned out behind him as he stepped across the grass. Behind him, a young woman with startling black hair and darkly pigmented skin which looked rich and deeply attractive in the light. The Doctor turned back to look at her and spread his arms beside him as though they were wings.

"To you, Miss Jones, may I present ...Barcelona!"

He was grinning broadly and a gentle wind ruffled his already untamed hair.

Martha gave him a smile back and took in the sight around her.

This forest wasn't used to visitors. Out in the back-reaches of the planet Barcelona it tended to be left alone. It lay under the protection of the Environmentalist Act of the Shizra Decade, for it held some of the rarefied and oldest secrets on the planet. Barcelona being a planet of many suns, the Doctor explained as he and Martha walked, made this forest one of the few places where it was never cast in complete darkness. At all points during the day sunlight would, at some point, stream through the trunks of the trees and it was therefore coveted by travellers as the perfect resting point.

"But," the Doctor added with a mischievous glint, "we're not here to rest – we're here to explore!"

"Sounds to me like you've already done a lot of the exploring yourself," Martha laughed as she listened to his knowledge of the place.

He came back with, "Knowledge is the key to power. You know that."

"Of course. I _am_ human."

The Doctor continued to explain that he was simply here to 'show her around'; he had meant to come here before, a long time ago, and had never quite got around to it. Even though he didn't say as much, Martha could tell just from his expression that he regretted not coming here sooner and wondered why. She was quite happy to walk with him as they talked and take in the surroundings. The trees were the highest she had ever seen and she had to crane her neck right up to see the top of them. Even then it was impossible to see any trace of sky, as the branches were all interlinked with each other and created a somewhat sheltered effect. The yellow light bathed the plants with rich, bright colours, filling everything in the spectrum from red to green. Fantastic flowers, some bigger than her, grew in small tufts at the base of many of the trees and some form of wildlife – something that sounded like a bird and the drilling of a woodpecker – could be heard all around them.

The path ahead was very well laid out. It was only grass, but it wound its way through the trees and wildlife as a perfect exploring trail; the trees were growing so close together that it was impossible to leave the path to do a little of the Doctor's famous 'exploring'. Besides, he explained as Martha looked longingly into the depths of the forest, there would be little point in roaming further than the path even if they could – the tree roots started to grow above ground not far in and would be sure to capture any trespassers by winding said roots around their limbs.

Martha pulled a face. "What do you mean by 'capture'?" she asked a little warily.

"I think I'll leave that to your imagination – no pun intended. Come on, this way, it's not far now."

"Doctor, where are you taking me?" She trotted up to his side to try and gain a clue from his face, but he gave away nothing.

"Somewhere that I've never taken anyone else," he answered cryptically. He turned his head slightly and caught her eye. "You'll see," he added with a smirk.

The path forked not long after and the Doctor, very much in a new character that Martha hadn't seem him in for a while, swerved left without any warning at all. She was so transfixed on the scenery that she almost walked the wrong way. He refused to say much more on the planet apart from facts about its history. He wouldn't tell her why they had come here, what he intended to find, what he was looking for or even when they were going to leave again. Neither did he explain why he had left the TARDIS so deep in the forest. The closest Martha got to an answer for that one was a half-hearted shrug and the word 'locals', muttered rather distastefully.

They continued on, more forks occurring every now and then and the Doctor always taking the one which led them further into the dense trees. Martha wasn't sure how long they had been walking, but she suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

"Something wrong?" the Doctor asked, turning and looking at her quizzically.

"That," Martha replied, squinting slightly. "Can't you hear it?"

The Doctor's face was perfectly blank. "I can't hear a thing."

"Sounds like ...drums. Lots of them. Over there, are you sure you can't hear anything?"

She began walking to the side of the path, frowning in the direction of the noise.

"Are you hearing things, Martha? Can't have an assistant who's hearing things; you'll spoil my reputation."

Nonetheless, the Doctor joined her by the side of the path and listened out for what might be any sound of drumming. The truth was that yes, he could hear the drumming just as clearly as Martha could – but he found his assistants usually got a lot more out of their visits if he gave them a surprise. He smiled to himself, knowing that they had not much more of a walk to go.

At the next fork he took a sharp right, which led them suddenly deeper into the forest. And then, with no warning whatsoever, he stopped straight. Martha almost walked into him and practically tripped over herself to avoid doing so.

"What are you doing?" she asked, rubbing the ankle she had just kicked.

The Doctor flashed her a grin. "I believe we're here. Give me a moment."

He stepped up to a tree, thicker than the others, and pressed his ear right against it. Hands either side of his face, he tapped gently at the wood and listened to the sound reverberate through the trunk. With a smile, he then reached into his coat pocket and retrieved the sonic screwdriver.

"I'm brilliant sometimes, you know," he said to apparently himself as the screwdriver hummed against the bark. "Simply brilliant. A human with _half _my brilliance would be considered a genius. Now then, stand back Martha, we don't want you to get absorbed by any roots."

She watched with dazzled awe as the tree began to bend and sway as though its trunk were made of jelly. She became even more impressed when the Doctor, after re-pocketing the screwdriver, held the trunk of the tree to one side as though it were a curtain and walked through into a dark clearing. He'd let go within an instant and suddenly vanished behind a row of identical trees.

"Doctor?" Martha called a tad uncertainly, approaching the tree with caution. "Am I supposed to follow?"

"Just do what I did," came the reply. Martha jumped. Rather then just sounding slightly muffled, as she would have expected, his voice seemed magnified ten times, as though he were speaking through a megaphone. Feeling slightly unnerved, Martha stepped forward with anxiety pumping out a steady rhythm in her heart. It was an odd sensation to hold the tree to one side and walk into a dense glade. There was no sign of the Doctor anywhere. She took a breath, reminding herself that explorers always went forward no matter what. She let go of the tree warily and was thrown into almost complete darkness, with nothing save a sun blinking helplessly through thick trunks of trees like light through dark blinds. A very alien sound of what must have been birds echoed around her and she suddenly felt very out of place.

"Took your time, didn't you?"

The Doctor's voice was loud in her ear and have her a start. She turned and playfully thumped him on the arm.

"Well someone wandered off without warning," she accused. "I'm going to have to find a leash for you, I am. Leather, probably. Let's see you try and walk away then."

The Doctor flexed an eyebrow. "Come on," he said, paying no heed to her comment and picking his way across the forest floor. "This way. Not far now."

They made their way in almost complete silence, the Doctor leading the way elegantly across the impossible carpeting of tree roots and Martha muttering every time she caught her foot on one that was particularly obscure, which was fairly often.

It was getting progressively darker as they made their way forward, yet the beating of drums was getting louder. Martha had the vague feeling that the Doctor knew exactly what that sounds had been wand was trying to pique her interest. However, she was just about at the point of wondering if the Doctor really knew where he was going (a question she ended up asking herself almost every place and time they went) when he stopped. He lifted a hand behind him, signalling for Martha to stop too. He was quite a way in front of her, a good four metres or so, and she hesitated with baited breath.

His eyes were fixed ahead, to the apparent climax of the drums, and his body was tense with stillness. Martha watched as he carefully reached inside his coat for the screwdriver with the sort of slow pace a bird-watcher might have for a rare sighting that has landed a few feet away.

"I think," she heard him utter quietly in a patient and level tone, "we may have come at a bad time."

Martha felt the temptation to join him on his particularly large tree-root quite overbearing; however, something about the entire eerie situation told her to stay put. Apart from the sounds of hollow drums the forest was completely quiet now.

"What's going on, then?" she asked, only slightly resenting the fact that she couldn't see for herself. Up ahead there was a break in the trees and light streamed over the Doctor, giving him the perfect window to watch the scene before him.

For a fleeting second the Doctor missed the patience and sensitivity of his previous companion – but it was gone within the moment as he watched what was ahead of him.

"Did I promise you an adventure before we set off?" he asked in the same tone, painfully aware that their being caught may well be the death of one or both of them. It was a wonder they had made it this far, he admitted to himself. Unless... The Doctor gulped inwardly; he'd forgotten that the forest of Barcelona was prone for trapping unwanted residents.

"It might have come up."

"Well, I'd say it's pretty promising we're going to get one." The Doctor's voice retained the calm, slow patience of that of a father who doesn't want to swear in front of his child when he is angry with them. "In fact," he continued, his finger flicking through the settings on the screwdriver, "on a scale of on to ten – one being watching golf in your great-aunt's living room, ten being the witness of a once-in-a-lifetime supernova – I'd say we were about... " The screwdriver hummed into action at the same time the Doctor instantly realised it was the wrong resonance. "... infinity." The drumming stopped. "Plus one." For a few shattering moments there was nothing but complete silence and stillness throughout the entire forest. Then, "Martha?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Run."

She didn't need telling twice. If the look on his face as he turned towards her wasn't enough, the bone-chilling haunting cry that shortly followed definitely was. Within the second, Martha he arched her entire body in the opposite direction and began to run. It was like climbing over rocks. The ground was so uneven that she had no choice but to hop from one place to the next. It was impossible to tell what direction they had originally come from as the interior looked exactly the same in whichever direction you looked: miles and miles to the same trees and roots lay ahead of her. Martha found that she was putting so much effort into escape that the forest floor seemed to swim beneath her feet. Fear fluttered in her heart as she heard a terrible sound of hundreds of tiny feet closing in around them – like the pelting of a hailstorm. She pushed herself on, fearing to even look behind her and check.

Martha had no idea where she was going, and the Doctor realised all too late. He watched her ahead of him, doing her very best to fling herself forward onto the next tree root yet retain her balance. He knew that if she fell into a crevice between the large roots they would both be in even more danger. He wished – oh, how he wished – that he had listened more closely to he resonance of the drumming when he'd first heard it. He had been clumsy, assuming the Tribe was simply in the midst of an ordinary ritual. He had forgotten that once ever dectora the Tribe held a different ritual; a ritual of sacrifice. And to interrupt this was penalty by death.

He could hear the creatures behind him, imagine their hundreds of vicious little faces in his mind. It was the teeth he didn't like: rows of pointed fangs, just waiting to tear flesh apart in an instant. He shuddered just thinking about it.

Suddenly, the Doctor felt something catch his ankle and it caused him to stumble slightly. He looked back at what he tripped him and his face fell with worry. Even though the creatures were nowhere to be seen, the fact that he could hear them meant that the forest could hear them too. He kept his eyes on the ground as he ran, scanning them over the openings between the tree roots that led deeper into the ground. He and Martha were in more danger than he had first realised; the forest was defending itself. The entire floor beneath them was writhing with tree roots that looked very much like tentacles. He just hoped that Martha hadn't noticed the roots as they slithered over each other with the simple intention of catching the intruders and trapping them for as long as the forest lasted.

"Don't look back!" the Doctor shouted to Martha above the din of nature. "Just keep running, you're doing fine!"

"I wasn't exactly intending to stop!" she called in answer, stumbling over a rather large root she was sure had just moved. "What's going on?"

She didn't get an answer. The Doctor had spotted something up ahead that may well save their lives and was already grappling with his faith for hope that it would work.

"Martha, when I tell you to, go _left_!"

"Left?" she shot back, bemused. "It's the wall of the – "

"Just do it!"

He counted the markings of the trees beside him as they pushed their way forward. If he was very very lucky, then the atomic structure of the tree he had changed was still in effect and they could make a quick escape. He could see the tree, would recognise it anywhere. Martha was almost there...

A scream of shock rang up from nowhere and all the Doctor saw was Martha's figured pulled to the floor. Within moments her body had disappeared down the gap between two tree roots. The Doctor scrabbled his way over to where she had fallen and stood on the flat part of the tree trunk while his eyes scoured the undergrowth with desperation. He shouted her name but got no response. All he saw was a layer of roots and no sign of his companion. On instinct he dived into his coat pocket for the screwdriver: it got him into this mess and it could get him out.

As he searched quickly, the Doctor muttered, "I have lost too many people due to stupid mistakes, I am _not_ losing you."

Upon the right resonance he aimed it at the squirming roots below and switched it on with deliberation. The slightly unnerving sound oscillated around him. An unearthly squeal rang out as the roots became stunned and froze, and the Doctor jumped down into the pit. He began to wrench the roots away from the tree as he searched for his companion. With every root he pulled out there came a separate cry, as though the tree were literally crying out in pain, but he kept on as the seconds ticked by. He found Martha embedded between layers and layers of tree roots, her eyes wide and staring up at him as she pleaded for her life – her mouth was gagged by a root which the Doctor quickly took care of. Panting, he helped her climb out of the mass of dazed roots.

"Thanks."

"You okay?"

"Is there time for this?" Martha pointed out as the forest began to move threateningly in on them once more.

"Very good point. Let's go."

The two scrambled up the side of the ditch. It only took the Doctor a second or two to find his bearings again and he made his way toward the wall of trees to the left. He found the curtain-like tree and within seconds he and Martha were back on the path. The bright, colourful light that streamed around them seemed so false now that they had seen the real nature of the forest.

Martha bent over double, relieving her breath; the Doctor looked anxiously further down the path. He went to speak, but the moment he did so a great rumbling all around interrupted him. The entire scenic woods seemed to be shaking, as though a massive earthquake was tearing the world in two. The Doctor squinted into the distance, trying to make out the shadowy black shapes merging towards them. Then he realised, and his gaze fell upon Martha. More specifically, the trickle of blood that was oozing from her temple.

"We're not out of the woods yet, if you'll pardon the pun," he told her sympathetically, ignoring his increasing heartbeats for her sake. "And if we don't start running right about now, we never _will_ get out. This place is destroying itself from the inside out in the hope to catch us."

"What are we waiting for, then?" Martha panted.

Their eyes met and they grinned at each other.

"Martha Jones, whatever would I do with out you?" the Doctor asked affectionately.

"Get yourself killed probably, knowing you. Come on."

On a sudden impulse, the Doctor grabbed her hand and they started sprinting back up the soft grass of the path. Behind them, trees were uprooting and becoming so dense that the sunlight was being blocked out entirely. Blood pumped and feet thumped on the floor, and for a while, the only sounds in the air around them were that of staggered breathing. Martha didn't know how the Doctor managed to remember where he was going, but when they rounded a corner and saw the TARDIS ahead in a glade she could have kissed him. For the moment she had to make do with squeezing his hand and feeling him squeeze back.

They slowed at the door, giving the Doctor enough time to slip the key into the lock and turn it. He glanced back behind them and saw the darkness gaining on them like a massive rush of water. He then turned to Martha and gave her a wide, boyish victory-grin. With that he leant on the door with his shoulder and practically stumbled inside. It was slammed shut within the instant and he and Martha leant back against it, panting heavily.

"Should have taken you to the tourist centre instead," he breathed after a moment or two. He caught Martha's amused eye and added, "Dogs with no noses."

Then, for no reason at all she could see, he burst out laughing.

-oOo-

The TARDIS was suspended in the vortex of space and time. Breath caught and many cups of tea later, the Doctor and Martha hovering apprehensively by a monitor in the console room. He had made a quick job of getting them back to safety, as well as cleaning up Martha's cuts and bruises in the infirmary (or as much as she would let him). He had then spent quite a lot of time apologising for the sheer danger and stupidity of the trip.

"I don't know what I was thinking," he'd told her whilst pouring two cups of tea in the kitchen. "I was hoping to show you a really rare sight, but ...I don't know. Timing must have been off? And she's usually so good at gauging the right time. Whatever it was, we interrupted their ritual of sacrifice and, well ...you saw what happened. Those trees are protected by the environmentalists for good reason – I was _there _when they set up the organisation! The only tours of that place are done with incredibly professional guides and they never go deep into the forest. I think I'll give them a cooling-off period before I go back there again."

Martha, somewhat to his surprise, felt quite invigorated by the trip; she didn't seem to care how close they had come to death.

"Death," she had sighed with wonder. "It's just the next big adventure, isn't it Doctor?"

He had smiled bitterly, thought of a million different answers, but said none of them.

Now they were happily enjoying each other's company while the Doctor pointed out further possible planets they could visit using the touch-screen monitor. He had long found out that this was her favourite way to choose a destination, as it gave her a chance to see the statistics of the planet as well as see parts of it for herself. The screen laid out, in digital form, a number of slots which showed pictures of a planet in each. By searching for a specific category, the Doctor could easily skim through thousands and thousand of planets, as well as quickly checking their statistics by brushing his finger over the planet in question and bringing it into full screen.

When she had first seen it, Martha had attempted to use it herself, but the Doctor had explained that the screen relied on fingerprint recognition – among other things – and was used as a safety device. Who knew what trouble could be done if a stowaway found itself on board?

"Hmm ...that one," Martha said, indicating the square box towards the top left of the screen.

The Doctor tapped it lightly with his index finger. Murky jade beaches and a bruised plum sky filled the display. Foam rolled up the beach like an army of albino horses, each current bringing a new wave of attack; these waves then retreated to the shadowy depths of the obsidian sea that lapped at the beach's edges, forming a constant cycle. In the distance, amongst oddly stacked rocks that were silhouetted against the backdrop of the sky, a pale pink tinge of the falling sun could be seen.

"Nice choice," the Doctor responded. He sounded vaguely impressed. "Alpha Minor III, that is. Lovely place – if you can stand the heaviness of the atmosphere. The gravitational pull is slightly more than that of the Earth's; you probably wouldn't notice it under normal circumstances. Mind, you wouldn't want go to there with a hangover. Particularly if you've picked it up from the Proxis District just off the coast of the Lexicon Delta Stream – they have a nasty reputation for prompting inflammation in the most uncomfortable – "

"Steady on, Doctor," Martha interjected before the pictures in her mind became too graphic. "You don't want me having nightmares, do you?"

The Doctor put on a pout. "No Alpha Minor, then?"

"Depends. Have you got a hangover?"

"Not that I'm aware of." The Doctor grinned. "So how about it – fancy a trip?"

"No rainforests," Martha warned.

He nodded and looked towards the screen again, checking the data his ship had picked up from the planet. "Not a tree in sight."

"And no tribal animal things, either – it would be nice to stay there for long enough to actually see something."

"Okay, got it."

"Somewhere to actually explore, so I know where I'm going."

"Freedom in every direction."

"And... " Marta paused and the Doctor looked up. She have him her somewhat cheeky 'I'm-better-at-this-than-you' look, then grinned. "... Somewhere you can't avoid explaining what's going on."

"That was necessary," the Doctor defended with mock insult. "If I'd answered you rather than being on the ball then I wouldn't have been able to hold them off."

"On the ball? Hold them off? I nearly got swallowed by trees!"

"Minor technicality."

Martha scowled at him and the Doctor cleared his throat.

"I'll take that as a yes, then?" he added hopefully.

"Oh, go on then – seeing as you so obviously want to show off," she smiled in return. "I'll go and put on some shoes I can actually run in – I'm not making the same mistake as last time."

The Doctor muttered something that sounded like, "I never show off," which led Martha to shake her head laughingly as she left the room.

He watched her go with a feeling of warmth; although he had never meant for it in the beginning, he and Martha had gradually grown into an unlikely team. He found her attitude increasingly amusing to bounce off and every now and then, he did find a sudden need to impress her. She had proved herself a worthy companion since their first meeting in the hospital – especially since he had instantly taken a liking to her. She was clever, too, which helped. Very clever, in fact, and not just academically so. She had the ability to think on her feet and come up with wild reasons for things, even if they were completely off the mark. In that respect she reminded him a little of Rose. And then of course there was the mild flirting, which did scare him occasionally, but she seemed to be keeping that in check.

The Doctor sighed.

One of these days, he decided as he pulled down a lever to change gear, he was going to find someone who was more interested in the destination than the driver.

The TARDIS began wheezing gently into action, the central column glowing a healthy green malachite and casting odd shadows around the room. The Doctor cranked the gear up further and pulled on something that looked very much like a bicycle pump. He glanced at the screen display to check the time period they were hurtling towards and suddenly had a change of mind. He quickly spun the year-indicator on the console to a random time, then urged the TARDIS into a different route. Glancing up at the screen again he noticed something, a small little warning flashing in the corner. Frowning, he left the controls and stepped over to it. He took his glasses from his pocket, perched them on his nose and squinted at the display.

"That can't be right... " he mused, tapping the screen with confusion.

As though in response to the small touches, the entire room suddenly have a huge time-wrenching lurch. Had the Doctor not had a hand on the console railing he would have been thrown to the floor. Regaining his balance, he rushed back to his original controls. Another shudder took the entire ship and this time, the Doctor with it. He landed on the floor as yet another quiver stole the room. This continued for longer and the sound of metal-on-metal echoed around him.

He scrambled to his feet and grabbed the screen between his hands, his eyes desperately searching for something that would disprove his worry.

"No!" he shouted, releasing the monitor and stumbling backwards, his face contorted with fear and worry. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You can't. You just _can't_!"

With fears for Martha and her safety in his head, he dived towards the controls and slammed the gears down to zero. With an almighty crunching sound of dimensions scraping against one another, the TARDIS attempted to dematerialise from the planet's atmosphere.

For about five seconds, everything was still; it was quite possibly the longest five seconds he had ever lived through.

And then something very quiet began to tickle at the edges of his hearing. He wouldn't have noticed it had he not been listening, but now that he'd become aware of it, it seemed ten times as loud. It was a gentle sound, like the trickling of water or the sound of nails tapping slowly on a mirror. Then he realised what it was. In a languid, terrified motion, the Doctor swept his eyes up the controls to the central column. What he saw made his blood run cold. The central column – the channel for the time vortex – was no longer pulsating a calm green. Instead there swirled an angry, fiery red, a ruby shade of blood that was bruised with clouds of ebony. With the change came a deafening cry, sounding very much like the prongs of fork being scraped down corrugated iron. The liquid inside started to bubble like violent acid. It splashed up the sides, adding pressure as it went.

And the noise he had heard? From where he was stood, the Doctor could see – with perfect clarity – exactly what it was. The glass had hundreds of lines of cracks in it, all branching out from the centre. He watched, spellbound, as the cracks continued to form, spreading throughout the glass like a disease. He had perhaps a matter of minutes before it shattered entirely and every single dimension his ship was in contact with compressed together and imploded into nothing. He instantly leapt into action.

There was one chance of survival: buried at the heart of the console was a button. Nothing big or impressive, and only about two centimetres in diameter, the mauve switch was probably the most dangerous device on board the entire ship. It would only become activated when it came into contact with Time Lord DNA; specifically, the Time Lord who was in psychic resonance with the TARDIS. It shut everything down. The power. The dimensional grating. The connection with the Time Vortex. The chameleon circuit, the translator, the Heart. In essence, it would kill his ship. Nothing would exist beyond the inner four walls of the blue police box from 1940 Earth besides whoever and whatever was in the room when he pushed that button.

Martha. He didn't have enough time both to find her and to activate the switch. He stood in indecision, precious seconds ticking by. Then, with a heavy heart, he lunged to the floor and hunted desperately for the sonic screwdriver in his jacket pocket.

"Martha!" he practically screamed, every single syllable of her name filled with panic. He just hoped she could hear him, hoped that the TARDIS would carry his voice to her as she had done on so many other occasions. "I'm cutting off the dimensional link and if you're not in the console room by the time that happens, I won't be able to save you. You've got about a minute maximum. I can't hold on and I can't wait; now for pity's sake _run_!"

He had done all he could for her. Ignoring the tears of panic and guilt growing in him, he aimed the screwdriver at the metal panelling around the base of the console and fired it into action. It gave a few pathetic hums before giving out completely, its energy having been totally drained form the corruption in the Time Vortex.

The Doctor threw it aside without a second thought, already searching for the manual version. Within seconds he was attacking the screws that lined the edges of the panel, as well as fighting to keep on balance from another onslaught of vibrations. In his head he was counting down just how long it was until the entire universe was destroyed.

After what seemed like hours he was able to wrench the panel away, earning himself a gash down his hand as he did so. He threw it to one side nonetheless and flung himself forward into the depths of his ship. There was maybe half a minute before it was too late, if that. The cracking above his head had become louder and more persistent.

A jungle of wires and lights surrounded him. Ahead he could see the central column with the glass looking dangerously worn. And, on a little stand just past it, the button. With all the strength he could muster the Doctor crawled forward and extended his arm. His leg sliced over a shard of panelling he had torn in his haste to remove the another, but he ignored it. All around him he heard a scream that could have been him, his ship's or even the flow of time itself. He was beyond the point of being able to tell. His head was so thick and dizzy through the repercussions of what was happening to the TARDIS he could barely tell which direction was up.

The mixture behind the glass was glowing violently bright and all at once the cracks seemed to join together as one. The Doctor, in a last effort of concentration, closed his eyes and slammed his hand down on the button as hard as he could. At exactly the same moment the glass shattered and thousands of shards flew in every direction, releasing the oozing liquid into open air. Particles fought particles as time bled freely into open space. Everything that is, was and ever could be screamed.

Then there was silence.

It was over.

-oOo-

**The City of Skarta, a time unknown. Brahnz Nörvich's office, at the fourth constellation passing.**

Keeper Brahnz Nörvich was suffering a long day. He was already on his eighth portion of what long-distance relatives would have called coffee, and the stars at Easternside had barely even begun formation. Although, what with the endless nights, perhaps it wasn't surprising that he found himself always tired.

He stood at his desk, watching screens and tapping buttons as he checked the power systems towards the west side of the city, Skarta. A report had come in of a few surges; he hoped they were just hiccups in the readings, as they could not afford to lose many more living estates. They were pushed for space as it was. If the wasteland were expanding again then they would have no choice but to take up an offensive position, a task almost impossible for his kind.

Brahnz took another gulp of coffee. Sector 34L looked fine to him. Perhaps the readings were a mistake after all...

He got an incoming call on his radio and answered it quickly.

"Brahnz here," he spoke gruffly into the transmitter. "What's the problem?"

The voice that crackled back was distorted with noise to say the least, but still audible. It was another, his equivalent (or near enough) in a department two streets up.

"Switch over to wavelength Ж. Do you see that?"

Brahnz changed the setting on his monitor and peered at the screen. Reaching over to the far side of the room he turned on a receiver and listened carefully. He picked up the radio and spoke into the grille.

"There's definitely a disturbance of some sort," he affirmed, looking back at the monitor again. He twiddled with a dial on the base to adjust the readings. "Can't tell what yet, but it's chucking out a high amount of radiation. Is it just sitting there?"

"For the moment," came the reply. "It appeared out of nowhere not long ago. We thought it had gone, but it was back within a few seconds. If we hadn't been tracking the star formation for signs of change we probably wouldn't have picked it up. How is Westernside doing, by the way?"

"Fine, fine," Brahnz replied absently. His eyes were fixed on the monitor. He put the radio to his mouth again. "It's moving."

"You serious? Where is it headed?"

"The wasteland." Brahnz's voice was grave. "Systems are picking up life inside. If they survive that crash they'll need our help."

"What makes you think it's a crash?"

He studied the screen for a moment whilst their radars followed the track of the odd device. An incoming frequency from the receiver across the room confirmed his suspicions.

"Nothing falls that freely if it's being controlled."

"So you're telling me this thing first appears out of nowhere, hovers for a bit, then decides it's going to crash? And you want to go out there and help it with no idea what it is?"

"Pretty much."

"You're mad – they could have our heads for this, you know."

Brahnz laughed amusedly at his friend. "I don't think we have to worry about that; they have better things to do with their time. Trust me on this one. Meet me above ground in ten, and secure a couple of the Raelah if you can. I don't much fancy venturing out there without any protection."

"You'd better hope you're right about this. See you in a few."

Brahnz replaced the radio to its holder and readjusted the optical settings on the visual display unit. He switched to a camera that looked out across the wasteland and watched the silhouette of the figure hurtle towards the ground. There was nothing they could do until it had landed, and then they would have to trek across miles of black desert following the plume of smoke that was assured with any crash landing. However, it wasn't that he was apprehensive about. If he and Puhl had to extract carcasses from a wreckage one more time then he might just have to resign. Since becoming Keeper of the Peace for Southernside he had quickly learned that salvaging bodies for recycling purposes was a less than pleasant experience, and one that he would quite happily avoid in the future. Hopefully however, this would be the case that proved the rule.

Downing the rest of his coffee, Brahnz collected his spear from the wall and began up the steps to the surface. Apparently, his day was going to become even longer.


	4. Eye of the Storm

**Chapter III – Eye of the Storm**

Once upon a time – a time so old and grey that there was no belief for it now save in fairytales – there was a King. The King ruled nothing except for his home, and this suited him quite well. He had a wonderful wife, an incredible son and a wide family whom he cared for more than was usual for other Kings like himself. Yet where once he had spent long, languid days with them, now he barely saw them. One day, when he was still quite young and foolish, he had stolen a horse from a local stable and had ridden it as far as it would go. She had taken him to sights he had always read of yet never experienced and had taught him things that were impossible to learn from books. On his travels and through his findings he helped many creatures. He soon forgot about his family and the life he used to live, though he would never stop loving them.

Then one day he received an urgent message from his Kingdom; his people were in trouble and all those that were fit to fight were to return home. With a heavy heart for what lay ahead, he made a quick retreat.

The fighting went on for longer than he would care to realise. They were being invaded and their secret knowledge was being sought. Even his noble steed, who had fast become a best friend to him, was tiring. The sunset was drawing and the fight looked to be lost. It was then the King found himself summoned by his elders with no choice but to obey. They had a plan that would spell not victory, but a compromise they felt was worth the death of all who fought in the battle beside them. The King refused what was asked of him claiming that he would not and could not commit such a crime; he would not be responsible for such deaths.

He was challenged by the elders, who asked if he would prefer the enemy to claim their kingdom and all they had fought for, lived for and died for; they asked if he was prepared to put the kingdom and their allies in the hands of an enemy who would do nothing but wipe them out. The King had no choice. His family had already been slain due to treacheries of his own kind, and his friends had been kidnapped and tortured by the enemy until they were unrecognisable. He buried their deaths deep in his heart and rode his stolen stallion to a rock in a glade, with a sword set firmly into it. Rumour went that only the purest of hearts could release the sword from its imprisonment and give the wielder enough power to raise even the dead. Many had tried and failed to pull the sword from the stone and not one had succeeded.

But the King was different. He did not want the sword for himself; he needed the sword to save life, not renew it – so with an effortless sweep the blade came free and he stood in a clearing in the woods with the shining metal in his hands. He looked to his horse, what he considered his only companion. In the distance he could hear the sounds of the fray coming towards him and knew that he hadn't long to destroy the secret of his kingdom.

He looked into his horse's eyes and saw, not fear of what had to be done, but acceptance. With tears in his own he charged forward and thrust the blade into the heart of the creature before him. It let out a terrifying cry, and then slumped to the floor, dead. The sword itself disappeared into nothing, its secrets lost to eternity. The King, distraught from the loss of his family and his kindred spirit, fell to his knees in sorrow. The sound of the battle died until there was just silence, and he knew that he was alone. Rich blood stained the grass and seeped into the earth, forever a reminder about what had happened in this sacred place.

The King knew that what he had once called his Kingdom no longer existed. Tiredness overtaking him, he fell into a sleep he was sure he would never wake from. He had seen too much to keep on fighting.

In his dreams he heard a voice. An angelic purity that, for some inexplicable reason, he was sure was the spirit of his stallion. She spoke to him, raised him to his feet, gave him the passion and will to live again and promised to be forever by his side. In a state of hurt disbelief from all the damage he had caused, the King climbed onto her back and she took him to the only other place he had called home. If nothing else, he decided, he would keep fighting for the sake of others. There were many evils in the world he knew, but as long as he had the strength to keep protecting them, he could avenge the death he had caused and maybe – one day – be set free.

If he listened carefully, he could still hear the words that she had been spoken to him in the glade. They promised life and fulfilment and a friend he could always rely on. And, in the distance, he could hear the most beautiful singing...

-oOo-

The Doctor stirred with the voice of his dream still firmly in his mind. His head was spinning. He had the alarming sensation of falling despite the fact he could feel floor beneath his cheek and it was so dark it made no difference whether he kept his eyes shut or open. He made to lift his head and brace his hands on the floor to get up. But even through this simple action his body was stolen by a violent coughing fit. The sound of broken glass crunched beneath his weight and, once the coughing had subsided, he could taste blood in his mouth. It was metallic and extremely discomforting.

He made a second attempt to get up. This time he got far enough to realise he was still wedged underneath what was left of the console. With colossal effort he held himself upright for a few seconds, realised he was still alive and that the universe still stood, then collapsed back to the floor again. Everything hurt or ached in some way. Pain splintered down the centre of his right palm and he had the vague recollection of cutting it on a sheet of metal.

As the seconds ticked by and he concentrated on what had happened, pieces of events began to stream together in his head – it was like trying to remember an unclear dream from the night before. There had been a mistake, some sort of miscalculation. His attempt to try and fix the problem had somehow caused the TARDIS' stability to collapse. As for the why ...he hadn't got that far yet.

Then another memory sped back into his mind and practically slapped him in the face.

"Martha?" he called warily, his voice hoarse; it felt like the first time he was using it. He barely dared to hope she might still be alive. "Martha ...say something."

There was no response.

Carefully, the Doctor began to shuffle backwards out of the main unit. The sound of glass scraping over metal sent a chill down his spine. He did not need light to know that his once glorious TARDIS lay in ruins. After minutes of slow, monotonous crawling, the Doctor began to make his way unsteadily to his feet. When he had managed to balance for more than thirty seconds, he gave a tentative shake of his body and listened to shards of glass tinkle their way to the floor. He then sighed. What to do next was a complete and utter mystery. The first thing he needed to check was that all his body parts were still functioning, and it was a great relief to find out they were.

Something in the silence alerted his attention. It came from the other side of the room, the small sound of a muffled cough. It was enough.

Using memory where sight was not available, he made his way towards what would have been the door to the corridor – only now, of course, it was just a blank wall. He sensed heat and life somewhere near his feet and knelt cautiously on the floor. With apprehensive hands he felt for Martha's body. She was face down on the floor, obviously clever enough to have thrown herself there for protection from the shattering glass. Either that or it was sheer luck, but he would give her the benefit of the doubt. Her back was sprayed with shards and he gently brushed what he could from her clothes, not caring that he cut himself in the meantime.

"Martha?" he questioned softly, feeling her forehead in the darkness. "Come on, I know you're made of tougher stuff than this." He pulled his hand back in shock, feeling warm, sticky blood across his fingertips. His hearts began to race. "You can't give up. Remember that career of yours? The one you always tease me about completing? Oh Martha, please. Not now. Not after everything we've seen, everything we've been through... "

He trailed off into silence and sat in quiet. Her blood began to dry on his hand and he felt his chest become tight with unwanted emotion.

"Doc – tor?" The speech was punctuated with a single cough.

He blinked. "What?"

"Doctor? Is that ...you?"

He swept her into his arms and held her head to his chest, just as he would a child.

"Oh thank God," he breathed with relief, holding onto her warmth and suddenly feeling a lot more alive than he had two minutes ago. "I thought you'd... I mean, obviously I hoped, and you haven't, so that's good. But after what happened and not knowing if... The fact you're even here is amazing. Fantastic, even. I wasn't sure if you could hear... I didn't have time to - "

"Yup. Definitely you," she said shakily, with an echo of humour. "No one else I know can ramble on like that."

He released her and found, quite astonishingly, that she was laughing.

"You're laughing," he said thickly, for lack of anything else to say.

"Something to tell the grand kids," Martha mused, sitting up. "Are you okay?"

The Doctor could barely believe it. "I've just sent you hurtling through three thousand years of time and space with massive repercussions, and you're asking _me _if I'm okay?"

She shrugged. "I guess so."

"You. You're fantastic sometimes."

"Thanks."

"And yes, I'm fine. Bit battered and bruised maybe, but other than that okay." He helped her to her feet. "You?"

"Pretty much the same, I think. What's wrong with the lights?"

"The same thing that's wrong with everything else," the Doctor admitted with a heavy sigh. He looked towards the wreckage of what used to be the main console. Now that his eyes had begun to adjust to the gloom, he could just make out the ragged shapes of the machine. "She's gone."

"What do you mean 'gone'?" Martha asked with disbelief. "What's gone?"

"All of it." His voice was filled with an uncanny cheery tone, as though the implication of his words had not sunk in yet. "Everything. The whole caboodle. All the past, the history, the planets, the intelligence. All gone. Vanished into thin air."

"It must have gone somewhere," she argued. "You can't just ...get rid of a ship's power like that. It's got to still be here – just offline."

"You're really not getting this, are you?" the Doctor challenged, elements of mild irritation flaring at the side of his sing-song voice. He gave Martha a stern stare, even in the dark. "My ship is not 'offline'. I severed the connection to – well, everything. There is no ship because there is no heart. Not any more. We no longer have contact with the Time vortex, which means that whatever's outside those doors – " He pointed to the front doors, the windows above offering their only source of light " – is all we have."

"Can't you ...I don't know, turn the power back on?" she questioned, desperation in her voice. "There has to be something."

The Doctor buried the palms of his hands into his eyes.

"If my people were alive," he explained in a strained tone, "they would be able to fix her. But they're not. I'm on my own – well and truly now – and there's _nothing_ I can do. Do you hear that Martha, is that getting through? Nothing!" His voice resonated in the silence until even the echo died away. In a grave aftertone he added, "Rose would understand."

Martha was glad that it was too dark to see more than just a silhouette; otherwise she may have done something a lot more rash in response.

"Don't insult my intelligence by thinking I'll believe that's true," she told him sharply, moving past him towards the console. It was obvious the Doctor wasn't planning to do anything about their current situation, but she was convinced that something could be done. They just weren't seeing it yet.

"I'm sorry?" the Doctor returned with stunned disbelief, turning on the spot to face her.

"You heard me," Martha responded, pushing down anger. "If your 'Rose' really were so amazing, it would be her with you right now, not me."

He had no choice. With a burst of sudden energy, the Doctor swung his foot full force at the console frame. It rang like an eerie metal bell and sent vibrations spiralling through the room. He suppressed a cry of pain with a muttering of, "Stupid apes."

Martha glanced up at the Doctor, whose silhouette was now suffering a rather bad limp.

"Feel better?" she asked, not able to keep the amusement out of her voice.

"Yes," he growled through gritted teeth.

"That hurt, didn't it?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well if you'd stop throwing a temper tantrum for two minutes and come over here, you might see what I meant by 'something we can do'."

The Doctor hobbled over to where Martha was crouching and followed her gaze to the centre of the console.

"See?" she said and pointed to the murky dim light which seemed slightly illuminated in the darkness. "That's got to be something."

"Yes. Radiation particles." The Doctor straightened and gave a brief stretch. "They're what's left over from the Heart of the TARDIS. No more impressive than a deflated balloon, I'm afraid, and even less helpful to us."

"Oh." The disappointment she felt for having found nothing of interest was evident. "I'm sorry."

"Too late for sorry now. All we can hope or is that the air out there is breathable. Wherever 'there' is, it's got to be better than in here. Our oxygen is bound to run out soon, and I'd rather not suffocate to death given the choice."

"Well, you're just full of cheery anecdotes, aren't you?"

"Sorry. Just trying to be realistic."

Martha smiled and got to her feet. "That's a first."

"Oi, easy on the cheek, you," he admonished. He sat back against the console unit. "Or I'll throw you outside, and then whatever's out there and have you."

"Have me?" From her voice, he could tell she was smiling. "Come on Doctor, what sort of threat is that?"

"It was the best I could do on such short notice."

They spent the next few moments in silence, revelling the fact that each other was alive and each reflecting on the situation at hand. Eventually Martha asked what had actually happened and how they had ended up with nothing but a cold, dark room and an outside that had the potential to be even more dangerous.

The Doctor sighed and began to explain. He told her that after she had left, he had started a course for Alpha Minor. But as soon as they had hit anywhere near the atmosphere, the diagnostics had changed. Alpha Minor was no longer Alpha Minor, but nothing. The TARDIS had picked up no readings of any energy at all. It wasn't even a case of the planet not being there any more – there literally was just nothing. A centre of nothing surrounded by yet more nothing, pulling everything inside. The TARDIS had appeared to be hurtling towards nothing less than a black hole. He'd then battled with the machine, attempting to reverse the polarity and change their course before it was too late. He had managed, just. Then he wasn't quite sure what had happened, or why. The best he could guess was that the TARDIS must have undergone massive pressure – from where he had no idea – and the reaction he had seen had been an effect of that. Whatever the cause, had he not been able to get to that button then there wouldn't have been a universe left to save.

"Dangerous things, Time Ships," the Doctor mused. "Devastating if they go wrong, which is almost certain when dealing with the space-time continuum."

He then asked Martha how she had found her way to the console room. As it turned out, the TARDIS must have sensed danger and magnified the Doctor's voice. Martha had heard him loud and clear and had bolted back to the main room in time to see the red, glowing liquid and throw herself to the floor. She must have been knocked unconscious by the explosion, just as the Doctor was.

"So what do we do now, then?" Martha asked, looking towards their only exit.

"The only thing we can."

The Doctor stood and made his way over to the door. There was barely any light shining through the panels, but it was enough.

"Are you coming?" he asked with one hand on the latch. "There's no point in staying here."

He heard Martha slide off the console.

"But what about the air? What if we can't breathe?"

"Nonsense!" The Doctor offered a genuine smile, and in the pitch black she could almost make it out. "Anything is better than here, isn't it?"

"Even death?"

"Oh, death – who wants to worry about a little thing like death? It's just the next big adventure, after all."

"If you say so... "

"That I do, Miss Jones, that I do."

With that he released the catch and opened the door.

It was a sight that met their eyes. Miles and miles of black sand stretched before them, touching the horizon then disappearing into nothing. The sky was clear and dark, but penetrated with pinpricks of stars in every direction, which offered at least some source of light. The Doctor inhaled deeply. He then turned to Martha with a grin on his face; she was quite surprised at his good nature.

"There," he grinned, as though he'd just bested her at a game of chess. "What did I tell you? Breathable; knew it would be!"

Martha gave him a side-on look that said she didn't quite believe him.

"You're very ...perky all of a sudden," she commented.

"No reason not to be," the Doctor answered casually as he stepped out. The ground certainly seemed safe enough, but he bounced on it a couple of times for good measure. After deciding that it seemed springy enough to walk on, he turned back to find Martha still standing in the doorway.

"Everything all right?" he wondered, ignoring the blatant fact that it was everything but.

She stepped forward, but did not let go of the door.

"The TARDIS key. I left it in my bedroom, on the dresser," she said quietly.

The Doctor gave a slow nod of his head. "It wouldn't have made any difference. Once you close that door, our last dimensional link – perception – will be broken. She'll become just a box, four bare walls and not much else."

"So ...we'll be stuck here, then."

He met her eye, appreciating that she needed comfort. It was all right for him, he'd got used to the idea of dying alone a long time ago; and he no longer had a family to go back to; he didn't have _anywhere_ to go back to. But she was new to this; she hadn't had time to adjust. It had probably never really occurred to her that it was quite possible she could end up – in the words of one of his favourite women – all alone standing on some moon a million light years away.

The Doctor outstretched his hand towards her.

"No more than we already are," he informed her softly. She glanced between his hand and his face, obviously not yet ready to let the idea of the TARDIS and what she meant go. He met her gaze and pleaded with her silently.

Then her hand was in his and she was stepping forward, letting the door creak closed behind her and shut with a gentle 'click'. It was strange, knowing that they could never go back.

He smiled at her.

"Impossible is just a word, Martha – we may get her back."

She lifted her eyebrows with amused interest. "Someone's being positive," she remarked.

"Well," the Doctor answered, accentuating the vowel, "not much else to be, really. Not in a place like this. I've never seen somewhere so ...bleak. Well, I say bleak; I suppose it's got a sort of charm to it. An ...empty sort of charm, yes, but charm nonetheless. Wouldn't fancy seeing the brochure, though. 'Come here! We're ...bleak.'"

Martha had long slipped her hand out of his and began to wander a few paces. It looked the same everywhere – same sand, same sky, same lack of _anything_. The TARDIS stuck out like very blue box in a very bland world.

"So much for the chameleon circuit," she murmured to herself as she crouched to the floor. Reaching out, she took some of the sand between her hands. It was coarser than Earth sand, a lot coarser; it was more like picking up handfuls of sea-salt, with black crystals rather than white.

By now, the Doctor had stopped rambling. She turned to call him over but was faced with his back as he stood, in the empty air, looking at what was left of his only home. She could only assume that he was making his silent goodbyes.

"Doctor?" she wondered apprehensively, the large grains of sand trickling slowly through her fingers.

He turned to his name and smiled. With hands in pockets, he sauntered over.

"Found something?"

"I don't think so," she admitted, standing up with the sand between her palms. "Just wondered if you could make anything of this."

The Doctor frowned, then licked the end of his finger and dabbed it in the granules. When he withdrew his hand, his finger was as clean as when it had gone in.

"That particles aren't attracted to the sodium in my hand," he commented, staring at his finger as though it had sprouted two eyes and a nose.

"Which means... ?" Martha prompted.

His eyes met hers over the top of his finger. "Haven't a clue."

"Oh."

"Tell you what it does mean, though," he continued thoughtfully, dropping his hand to one side and looking over his shoulder. "I've never been here before. Don't know when or where we are, and have no recollection of having been here before. But – I could have told you that anyway, so we've learned nothing new."

Martha wiped her hands against each other as she brushed the sand to the floor. "So you're telling me I'm stuck on a random planet in the middle of nowhere with a rambly Time Lord?"

"Seems to sum it up quite well, don't you think?"

She made a 'hm' sort of noise, then looked helplessly about them. Already the same sight in every direction was beginning to unnerve her. Would there be any point in starting to walk? From what she could see, this planet was uninhabitable and they would come to much the same end whether they moved or stayed here. Except, perhaps, she might just die of boredom if they stayed in the same spot much longer.

Something in the distance, over the Doctor's shoulder, attracted her eye. She couldn't be sure yet, but she swore there was movement dabbing at the horizon. She squinted, trying to get a better view.

The Doctor, mid sentence about something to do with sodium particles, gave her a very strange look.

"Are you all right? Don't have something in your eye, do you?"

She gave him an exasperated look and pointed behind him. "No, of course I don't. Look!" He turned, rather confusedly, towards where she was pointing. "I'm sure it's moving."

"That's very strange." The Doctor's eyebrows pulled together in a tight frown and his mouth hung open slightly as he tried to work out who or what was on the horizon. "There's definitely something there," he agreed with his companion, who was also staring fixedly at the merge of movement. Ideas and solutions started to fall together in his mind. "Which means, if we're very very very very lucky... " A huge grin cracked his face. "There's life! Has to be! Almost impossible for there not to be, given the circumstances!"

Martha frowned. "So you're talking... "

"I'm talking big life. Intelligent life," he affirmed, nodding his head. "Because not only is there life over there, but that means there must be other life for them to survive. We could have just happened to crash in a particular uninhabited bit – doesn't mean this place isn't teeming with all sorts of life and culture elsewhere."

"But we can _see_ there's nothing. Whatever that is, over there, it's come from nowhere."

"Not necessarily nowhere," the Doctor countered. "The human eye can only see twenty-seven miles across, and that's in flat ground with perfect weather conditions. True, this isn't the Earth, I'm not human and this planet may be smaller, bigger, denser; my point is we can only see a very small portion of this place. Twenty-seven miles in radius, at best. Think of all the possibilities outside that!"

He was grinning now, obviously extremely excited by the fact that even though they were surrounded by nothing at the moment, there might be considerably less nothing once they got further on. Martha was dubious.

"So are you telling me that those things, over there, have an entire twenty seven miles before they reach us?"

The Doctor's face dropped somewhat. "Ah."

"And that they're not exactly moving at the speed of light?"

"Well... " He looked over to where they had been spotted and, in truth, they didn't seem to have moved that much. They must be travelling by foot.

"_And_ that we don't even know if they want to help us or, I don't know, eat us?"

"Now that one I do know – they wouldn't travel so far just to look for food, especially not if they've just come from somewhere that's full of life."

She raised an eyebrow and the Doctor lifted his hands in surrender. He'd known that wasn't her point.

"Okay, you win," he said, eyes wide. "We'll stick it out here. If they got close enough for us to realise they're dangerous, then we'll get back in the TARDIS and ...figure out what to do from there."

"You mean the TARDIS that's now just a 1940s' police box?"

"It's the best we've got," he reasoned, not ruling out the option that whoever was on the horizon might not be the friendliest of creatures. He could hardly say their last encounter with locals had ended well.

"Right," Martha sighed, her arms acquiring goosebumps from the air. "What do you suggest in the meantime?"

The Doctor met her eye for a moment then began rummaging inside the pockets of his coat. He knew it was in there somewhere...

With a large sweep of his hand he produced what he had been looking for. A small, rectangular box. Martha stared at it, as if to ask what the hell it was doing in his coat. He grinned.

"Game of cards?"

-oOo-

"They'd better not try and eat us," Puhl grumbled, as they made their way further across the desert. "I'm not trekking all the way out here just to get eaten."

"We won't get eaten," Brahnz assured, pulling irritably on his Raelah's cord when it managed to get under his hooves for the millionth time that journey.

"That's not what I really meant: and you know it."

"I'm almost sure they'll be friendly," he reasoned. "They've just crashed, what are they going to do? Start making demands? I hardly think so. And what do you think these are for, anyway?"

He shook the cord in his friend's face.

"I suppose," Puhl sulked, secretly pleased that he had ended up with the more well behaved of the two snarling, vicious, dribbling animals. "But what if they're Raelah-eating horrible things. With teeth? You know I don't like things with too many teeth."

Brahnz rolled his eyes. "Now you're just being ridiculous."

"But it could happen! It's a possibility! You can't just rule it out... "

And so the conversation continued. The two of them picked their way across the Black Desert with unbelievable lack of speed, but it was the only choice they had; no machinery worked out on these sands. It wasn't even as if life could survive for more than a few months, either, which was precisely why Brahnz was so keen to get their guests into safer territory. They didn't call it 'wasteland' for nothing.

The Raelah, he knew, had been getting pretty restless. Orangey-red in colour and with a massive mouth, layered with rows of the smallest teeth you could imagine, they were the only form of defence they had. They didn't have any eyes, either, so had to go with scent and hearing to find where their pray was. Truth be told, he wasn't exactly fond of the Raelah, but it was just too stupid to venture out here without some form of protection. The spear he carried was more for show than anything else.

He wasn't aware how much time had past, but at least the strange blue box was getting closer. It wouldn't be long now until they reached them and could find out just what was going on.

"They look pretty small... " Puhl said from his side, glancing down to his Raelah then up to the figures again.

Brahnz sighed. "That's because they're sitting down."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, look – that one's got his legs crossed."

"Oh, right."

Brahnz laughed, a sound that broke the sky. "Sometimes, I wonder how you ever made it to a deputy keeper – you're more scatter brained than half of the children."

Conversation was fairly thin after that.

-oOo-

Martha looked up abruptly, her concentrating shifting from the cards to the creatures approaching them. Quite how the Doctor had managed to convince her to sit down and play in the first place was a mystery.

"Did you hear that?" she asked quickly, after a bark of noise had penetrated the air.

The Doctor turned over a card in his hand. "Certainly did. Snap, by the way."

"I'm beginning to think this wasn't such a good idea... "

He pouted. "Oh, all right then. Vingt-et-un?"

"I'm not talking about cards, Doctor," Martha replied, getting to her feet. She looked genuinely scared. "They've got ...spears and vicious dog-things. And they're not even human."

"What did you expect?" the Doctor countered, reluctantly clearing up the cards into their packet. He would have to remember where he put them for next time. He glanced up as he stood, for the first time paying their visitors some attention. He instantly frowned. "I know their kind – I've seen them before."

Some sort of insistent memory tickled at the corners of his brain, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was trying to tell him.

"Are they dangerous?" she asked apprehensively.

"I'm not sure," came the admittance. "I don't remember much about them, but ...I've _definitely_ seen them before."

"So – you've been here before, then?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't think so. Probably just overlooked them in the TARDIS database systems."

They were close enough now that the Doctor and Martha could hear the snarls and grunts from the creatures on leads. The two walking with them seemed oddly quiet. They stood tall – taller than the Doctor, though not by much – and walked with heavy slow strides. The top halves, Martha had to admit, were fairly similar to humans': broad-chested males with thick, and what looked ever so slightly leathery, skin, the colour of dusty topaz rather than peach she might have expected. The faces were thinner than an average human's and longer, as if the skin had been stretched over a skull that was just too big. Their thick, muscly arms were laced with dark sapphire markings, set into the skin like an assortment of tattoos. Both of them had long black hair which was tied up at the back of their heads, giving them a somewhat superior look.

However, the stomach soon gave way to – not legs – but coarse, fine brown fur that branched out and spread over their entire bottom halves. They had four legs, wide and strong as tree trunks, that moved in a smooth motion as they walked. With hooves rather than feet and a long tail that matched their sleek black hair, they looked incredibly beautiful and elegant. Yet the slightly larger of the two – with the spear – appeared to be walking with a mild limp and, once he got closer, it was clear to see a long scar running down the side of his face.

"Centaurs," Martha breathed quietly with awe as she stood next to the Doctor.

His mouth tugged into a smile. "Centaurs would be the human equivalent, at a guess," he answered in a hushed tone, as they got closer. "Echadi, I believe, is the name of their race."

Martha watched, spellbound. "Echadi," she repeated with wonder, enjoying the way the word danced on her tongue.

The Doctor smirked and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Still think they want to eat us?"

-oOo-

By the time Brahnz and Puhl pulled up, it was more than obvious the Doctor and Martha were waiting for them. One of the Raelah began to growl deeply when it got close enough, straining against its cord and baring its teeth. Martha jumped a little and took a step backwards.

"I apologise," said the Echadi on the left in a deep voice – it was so calm and smooth, Martha felt like the Earth itself was speaking to her. He pulled tightly on the cord and the Raelah did a rather inelegant backwards roll and ended up in a somewhat confused pile in the sand.

Martha smirked.

"I'm the Doctor," said the man himself, taking authority into his hands and stepping forward. "This is Martha Jones, and this – " he looked somewhat regrettably at the police box, words failing him. "Is... "

"An accident?" Brahnz offered with a smile.

The Doctor looked back. "Yes, you could say that. A rather nasty one, come to think of it. I'm sorry we've crashed on your ...er, lovely planet and spoiled the ...scenery."

A few moments of silence passed between all four as none of them quite knew what to make of the other. Then all of a sudden Brahnz opened his mouth wide and laughed wholly. It was the sort of laugh that could cause an earthquake. Very deep, very loud and very heart-felt.

"Doctor," he chuckled, his voice still rumbling, "you are by far the most amusing man I have met in a long time. My name is Brahnz Nörvich, and this is Puhl. We're Keepers for the Centre of our city and we've come to offer you our help."

"To be perfectly honest," Puhl added in a voice that was not quite as deep as his friend's, "I'm only a deputy. There's not much I can do that Brahnz can't." He gave Martha a warm smile.

She smiled tightly back, but said nothing. Instead she pulled on the Doctor's sleeve.

"What?" he asked out of the corner of his mouth.

"Doctor – I can't understand them."

He blinked. "Pardon?"

"I said I can't understand them. They sound foreign, alien. You did too, when you spoke to them – what's going on?"

His eyes widened with realisation. "Oh, of course! The translator in the TARDIS, it's gone with everything else. I must have spoken their language without realising. Hold on a moment."

He turned back to the two Echadi in front of them and spoke in a similar booming voice, his mouth flowing beautifully over strange vowels and consonants. The two aliens looked between each other then nodded. Puhl took a brief step forward.

"Human-English?" he asked in words she finally understood. "Now there's a language I haven't had to think of for a while. I'm sorry for the confusion."

"Don't worry about it," Martha quipped in a breezy tone, smiling.

"The Echadi are very advanced for their species," the Doctor explained to her. "They have knowledge your scientists can only dream of."

"Thank you, Doctor," Brahnz spoke earnestly, bowing his head a little. "Your words are kind – you know of us?"

"Only a little," he admitted absently, looking around the surroundings again. "Sorry, but you confirm that you're Echadi?"

Brahnz looked a little taken aback. "No one has used that name for centuries, but ...yes. I suppose you could call us that."

"And this, where we are now." He pointed to the ground and looked the Echadi in the eye. "This is... "

"The Black Desert," Puhl offered, sounding somewhat confused. "The Wasteland."

The Doctor took in a big breath and tilted his head backwards. "Right. And – " He looked at his wristwatch " – apparently, you're in your twenty-second century of existence."

"Doctor," Martha said quietly from his side, "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking ...I was right. We're not somewhere random at all, not in the slightest. In fact we're about as far away from random as you can get."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about this!" He bent down and picked up a handful of grainy sand. Sprinkling it in front of their faces, he continued. "Sand. Everywhere, I'm guessing, apart from a few remote places that are packed with life and civilisation." His eyes glanced between those of Puhl and Brahnz. "Am I right?"

"Yes, Doctor, you are correct," Brahnz confirmed, a slight frown tickling his features. "But I don't see what this has to do with anything."

"Oh, it has everything to do anything." Turning to Martha he took her quickly by the arm and led her slightly to one side. He searched her eyes with his, his face deadly serious. "Martha, do you remember the name of the planet we were headed to before we crashed?"

"Alpha ...Minor, or something, wasn't it?"

He nodded as he spoke, "Yes, Alpha Minor III. When we crashed, the TARDIS didn't just transport us to some random planet in the middle of nowhere – this _is_ Alpha Minor, where we're standing, right now. Same coordinates, same century, same race, same star constellations – "

"But I saw it," she countered, frowning. "On the screen. There were beaches and shores and a sunset. This can't be Alpha Minor; it's too different."

"Excuse me," Brahnz interrupted, walking towards them. His face was contorted into wonder and confusion. "Did you just call this planet 'Alpha Minor'?"

"Yes... "

He gave a small, somewhat wry, chuckle. "It has not been called that for many, many years. That is the planet's old name and we do not refer to it now."

"So then – what _do_ you call it?" the Doctor asked, his interest very much piqued.

Brahnz heaved a shrug. "We have had names for our Cities, but that is all. What point is there in naming a planet that's almost impossible to live on?"

"But ...this isn't right, this doesn't make sense," the Doctor argued with a deep frown and he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "There should be cities – lots of them, all over the place. In the main streams of civilisations you shouldn't be able to move for buildings and technologies. Of course, once you get out to the coast line, you saw what we saw." He turned to Martha again. "Beautiful beaches, perfect scenery – a sight definitely worth seeing."

"There's never been water on this planet, Doctor. Not in the ways you describe it."

"But there has to be!" He took a few strides into open space and stared out over the miles and miles of deep black sand. "There was more than this. In its twenty-second century, Alpha Minor III should be moving into the resistance. You're at the height of civilisation!" He turned again, throwing his hand up into the air, his look somewhat flustered. "Or you should be," he finished weakly.

Brahnz gave him a very long, pensive look. At last he took in a breath and lifted his head. "Whatever theories you may have about my planet, Doctor," he began in tones that were firm but friendly, "I assure you that as it stands, Skarta is the only city still functioning. Puhl and I came out here to relieve you of your wounds – " His eyes trailed over Martha's cut just above her forehead "– which seem minimal at worst, and offer you a place to stay and recuperate. Whether you take that choice is up to you, but we have spent enough time in the wasteland. It is dangerous to stay out here for too long."

The Doctor's interest was instantly stolen again. "Why?" he asked in a slow voice, meeting Brahnz's eye. "What happens?"

They held each other's gaze for an uncomfortable length of time. Martha stood, looking between them, and wondered if they were having a silent conversation. The Doctor's face was rigid and without any traces of a smile. Presently, Puhl came up beside her.

"The City is quite a long walk," Brahnz said at last, ignoring the question. His eyes lingered on the Doctor then made their way over to the other two in his company. "We can discuss matters once we reach our headquarters and can get you settled in. That is, if you wish to come with us."

The Doctor looked over to Martha and smiled that devilish smile, the one that brought a glint to his spirit and told her there was more to this planet than first met the eye.

"How about it Martha?" he asked in his daring voice, his teeth flashing like a wolf's. "Up for one more adventure?"

She grinned in response. "You know something, Doctor? I think I might be."


End file.
